Our Blazer’s Edge Best Things Ever Tournament continues today with a pair of posts offering you a choice between some of the greatest things in our lives. Voting on the polls in this bracket is one of the ways we’re making the dog days of NBA Summer go quicker! Be sure to check out all of our first-round posts and vote for your favorite things!
Today’s post offers you a choice between Mob Movies and Emojis.
Cinema changed forever in 1972 when the original Godfather movie hit cinemas. It updated, reinvigorated, and in some ways completely reinvented the genre known as “Mob Movies”. Depictions of the New York based Mafia became garden-variety (three Godfathers alone, let alone Goodfellas, Casino, Donnie Brasco, and more). Other organized crime and law enforcement narratives followed. Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino became household names, their voices and mannerisms taking over popular culture.
In a similar vein, communication took a sharp turn at the turn of the millennium with the widespread use of cell phones and texting. Conversations were sharper, quicker…more information and emotion delivered in a shorter time with fewer syllables and characters than ever before. No invention embodied this more than the emoji. Expression gets distilled down to a single character: smiley face, laughing tears, crying tears, praying, high fives, face palm, shrug, peaches and egg…nevermind. Our interpersonal communication barely works without these colored pixels anymore.
So which is the better of the Best Things Ever in your life: Mob Movies or Emojis? Register your vote in the comments section below and be sure to check out our other post today (and past ones too!)