Yea, but try charades with a chinese speaker over IRC (or some language without any shared linguistic history)... suddenly charades with hand gestures is easier

Yea, but try charades with a chinese speaker over IRC (or some language without any shared linguistic history)... suddenly charades with hand gestures is easier. The parent comment's point was that it requires a similar linguistic background, you've merely pointed out that abstract symbols aren't universal. Too many comments are making this a black and white issue. In reality there are going to be some cases where text excels and others where pictures excel. But I suppose that isn't as interesting.