An interesting example of a remix is Emoji Dick, which is a translation of the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville completely into popular IPhone emoji characters, thus creating a whole different story experience.

Original Moby Dick and Emoji Dick

The source media for my chosen remix is literature, as the entire story of Moby Dick is what is being remixed. Fred Benenson, the editor, along with over eight hundred human intelligence task workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk, was able to translate the complicated text of Moby Dick into the much simpler form of mini picture icons that we know as emoji. This brings in a lot of criticism.

Example of text-to-emoji translation of Moby Dick

Some people look at this remix and think of it as garbage and a telling example of how language is no longer appreciated in a society that utilizes abbreviations, slang, and emoji as staples in their conversations. Others see the value of this remix, and comment on how it can introduce a new generation to the past, thus preserving the story of Moby Dick. Sure, the outcome is somewhat comical, but that just adds to the charm. In the end, Emoji Dick is it’s own art project and comparisons between it and the original shouldn’t be used as a way to devalue its worth.

It’s hard to say whether or not this remix is inherently ridiculous or oddly beneficial to the literary world, but it definitely transforms the meaning of Moby Dick from being a boring, overwritten, bland book into something new, entertaining, and (surprisingly or not) much more likely to be read by the newer generations. While the story obviously has lost a lot—there are no perfect translations from text to emoji, especially considering that there is a limited amount of emoji character, so the plot has obviously lost depth (not that it had much depth to begin with though)—a lot has been gained. Besides, Emoji Dick includes the emoji translations next to the original text so that if the emoji aren’t clear enough to explain what’s happening the reader still can understand what’s going on. Moby Dick was desperately in need for a fresh face to market to a new kind of audience, and remixing it into something like Emoji Dick was a great way (it started as a kickstarter project and has reached much success) to keep an old piece of literature alive by bringing it up to the new communication standards of this generation.

Page out of Emoji Dick

http://www.emojidick.com/