{"id":800,"date":"2008-11-06T13:32:27","date_gmt":"2008-11-06T17:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/?p=800"},"modified":"2008-11-06T13:32:27","modified_gmt":"2008-11-06T17:32:27","slug":"putting-emotion-in-emoticons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/2008\/11\/06\/putting-emotion-in-emoticons\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Emotion in Emoticons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a poem I found by poet\/storyteller Rives:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

O}-< Q<= 10018 MTWTh<\/span>F 02.28.08 7:55pm |* *<\/span>| Q<= O}-< \u00bd?…1\/256? Omg! <3 lol! {u} (_)3 =<\u201d>= H207xNaCl yllambywlaw Q<= \u201c?\u201d O}-< ..-.etc jv *\\o\/* #*@%! \u201c— —\u201d aabb O}-< :(|) xXx })i({ SW .+ 5th<\/sup>\/42nd<\/sup> ___ No.2 –> ]?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t figure it out, here\u2019s the link to him performing it live: <\/span>http:\/\/www.ted.com\/index.php\/talks\/rives_tells_a_story_of_mixed_emoticons.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It obviously works a lot better as a live performance (It\u2019s obvious that certain parts don\u2019t fit perfectly, or would be indistinguishable otherwise), but at the same time I found it really interesting how he decided to illustrate this piece using only letters, numbers and punctuation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The theme of the story is that there are at times limitations to the spoken language\u2014a guy sees a girl he wants to talk to, but doesn\u2019t know what to say. Instead of saying something generic, he decides to try and convey his feelings in his own unique way, and because of this the girl is left puzzled.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The illustrations, on the other hand, do the exact opposite. Letters, numbers and punctuation\u2014the building block of written language, are essentially only symbols (similar to what we\u2019ve discussed in class and read in Scott McCloud\u2019s Understanding Comics<\/span>). Because they are symbols, they don\u2019t actually \u201cmean\u201d anything. Therefore they have the ability to convey more than the role assigned to them. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For example, when Rives writes this *\\o\/* it does not mean \u201casterisk, backslash, lowercase O, solidus, asterisk,\u201d it means cheerleader. When Rives writes (_)3 it doesn\u2019t mean \u201cparenthesis, underscore, parenthesis, number three\u201d it means coffee mug. No one could say \u201cparenthesis, underscore, parenthesis, number three\u201d and think \u201ccoffee mug\u201d without first constructing the image (_)3. There is really no actual relationship. <\/span><\/p>\n

Rives\u2019s performance of this \u201ctypographical fairytale\u201d is not just a simple poem or story, but a commentary on language, communication and symbolic capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a poem I found by poet\/storyteller Rives: \u00a0 O}-< Q<= 10018 MTWThF 02.28.08 7:55pm |* *| Q<= O}-< \u00bd?…1\/256? Omg! <3 lol! {u} (_)3 =<\u201d>= H207xNaCl yllambywlaw Q<= \u201c?\u201d O}-< ..-.etc jv *\\o\/* #*@%! \u201c— —\u201d aabb O}-< :(|) xXx })i({ SW .+ 5th\/42nd ___ No.2 –> ]? \u00a0 If you can\u2019t figure it … Continue reading Putting Emotion in Emoticons<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions\/805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}