Semiotics used confusion! It's super effective!

Semiotics. A strange subject to write about.

In basic form, it is a picture / image of something that says something that everyone can see.

For example, Cupid. Cupid means love. It's a noticable symbol that most people would relate to love, just like most people would relate the grim reaper to death, the American flag to freedom of speech, Liberty Prime to aborting communism [well, in the gamer world anyway] and so on.

They can be simple things seen everyday such as signs by the road or in areas. The image below explains this factor.

This image has no words to go with it, but upon seeing it you immediatly assume it means 'No Smoking'. The picture speaks for itself and is such a commonly used image that no matter where it is seen, everyone assumes that it means that you cannot smoke in that area.

But then it gets more complicated. Some people see and interpret images in different ways. For example, take the image below.

Some people will see this image as just a normal cake. Cake normally means birthdays, or celebration to be precise. Besides, it's just a normal cake right?

Well, others, particularly in the gaming industry, see the cake differently. The cake is interpreted as decepton, lies. 'The cake is a lie' is a phrase used in everyday life in a lot of areas. It is known as a meme, which is basically a picture or phrase that is used over and over again, sometimes people even forget where they originated from. Said meme started on a game named Portal, where throughout the game you are made to do complicated puzzles and tasks, all the while being promised cake at the end, even though all that is at the end is an incinerator. On the walls around the game, the words 'The cake is a lie!' is scratched in by apparantly ex test subjects.

[Source of information - http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-cake-is-a-lie--5 ]

Other examples of memes that might've been heard by others include 'Cool story bro' with an image of something or someone with sunglasses on, 'So I herd u liek Mudkips' being another, normally coupled with an image of a Mudkip, which is a 3rd generation Pokemon.

A typical favourite of mine is 'Pools closed', a meme which started on a chat site named Habbo Hotel. A user was banned for a racist issue [apparantly, there is no conclusive proof as to why the user was banned, but the word from them was that it was because they were black], so he banned together with a group of over 50 fellow habbo users, all of them dressed up as black people in suits with large black afros on. They stood side by side so no one could get past in a location on the site named 'Habbo Lido' [the swimming pools], and simply stated 'Pools closed.' to anyone who attempted to get past.

But that's going off topic.

Overall, in my interpretation of semiotics, I conclude that it is a subject that requires much looking into to understand. In my basic understanding of it, images being interpreted as words or emotions is how I would sum it up.