My thesis was always going to be about emoji. Originally I planned to do a sentiment analysis using Twitter as a source of data. It was meant to visualize our collective response to difficult times. I wanted to tell a global story. Then I got sick. I exhibited symptoms of the coronavirus from April 2nd to April 25th and everything, all my plans, went out the window. 

As it turns out, the difficult times were just getting started and my thesis ended up being about me. My experience during those 3 ½  weeks. It’s a personal data project and, as it turns out, also a global story. 

MY SYMPTOMS

I began logging my symptoms and rating them, using emoji, to visualize their severity. The emoji represent a blend of my physical and emotional state. The loss of taste and smell, for example, was binary. It wasn’t something I could rate on a numeric scale. I had it then I lost it. So the emoji for taste and smell represent how that symptom made me feel more than severity. Which is the beauty of emoji. Their meanings are influenced by the words they inflect but also change based on their proximity to other emoji. Their limitation is their strength and their ambiguity invites reflection. 

HEALTH

Then I began cataloging other events of significance and appreciated the clarity of numbers. In contrast to emoji I found their  meaning to be refreshingly transparent. There was comfort, and some surprise, in these numbers. Did I really get only 9 phone calls in 24 days? And almost 2,000 emails? These became a commentary on my condition and my life in general.  

ACTIVITIES

You can take classes in writing and understanding emoji, they are being used to confound censorship, and they are developing meanings that are personal, community driven and cultural. An eggplant is no longer an eggplant and we live in an age in which the value of science is under assault and gut reactions are the basis or policy. In that world, emoji are the perfect representation of meaning. They provide a clear point of reaction but the intellectual investment is low. They play to the emotions and their meaning is personal. They’re like little sugar-coated street signs that you can choose to follow, ignore or interpret as you please.

Here I organized everything I did into rows and columns with emoji representing what I did and how I felt about that activity. I was advised not to lay down, to exercise, not to exercise, to eat but not to spend the energy cooking, to see a doctor but none were available, to take action but above all don’t do anything. It was an endless list of well-intended contradictions. My compromise was playing guitar. 

DIARY

Finally, I want a place to capture how I felt. While emoji were evocative, playful, and adequate for creating interpretable space I had more to say beyond images and numbers. This journal tracks my personal thoughts and reflections, and is perhaps the clearest record of my anxiety and hope.

Emoji are direct, reactionary and open to interpretation. They are an invitation, and their depth is in the willingness of the reader to reflect and engage. 

I began this project hoping to represent our collective emotions and allow individuals to find themselves in that data. Because of events beyond my control I ended up flipping that model to share an individual perspective and inviting others to find some part of themselves in that story.