I use emojis very sparingly, usually at the end of a sentence analogous to a punctuation mark. I never use more than two in a row, and never more than one of the same one.
In texting and messaging apps (as well as emails if I’m using Outlook) I may respond with a single emoji, often 👍, to indicate that I received the message and will comply with any requests.
The above demonstrates what I believe are the ideal use of emojis, as a compact way to express an otherwise unwieldy response, or a way to convey things like tone of voice and facial expression that is present in a face to face conversation but not in writing.
However, In my opinion, emojis rob the conversation of any gravitas whatsoever, so responding to “My dog died yesterday” with “I’m so sorry 😭😭😭” makes it sound like you’re making light of the situation. I get others may not feel the same way, so I don’t call them out when they do it, but it rubs me the wrong way personally.
Most screen readers will read out the unicode description of the character or render the description as a transcriber’s note on a braille display, so 🤮 is announced as face vomiting and written ⠈⠨⠣⠋⠁⠉⠑⠀⠧⠕⠍⠊⠞⠬⠈⠨⠜. If you spam a bunch (🔥🔥🔥🤣🤣🤣) it can quickly get very long.
It’s also apparent that people use the “wrong” emoji for the situation, and I don’t mean in the sense that the semantics of the symbol have widened or changed with usage. 😂 is often used to express sadness, when the description is “face with tears of joy”. 😢"crying face" would be much more apt.
I only use a few: 👍🤣🫣🍺
Side note, absolutely hate the fact that “they” are trying to take my thumbs up away. I love it. It’s a positive, sincere and humble emoji and people getting annoyed at it are needy little shits.
No, Stacey, you don’t get fucking a ❤️. Cutesy BS in return for completing some trivial task that’s part of our job is totally unnecessary. My 👍 is genuine, low-key gratitude and acknowledgement and it’s the best you’re gonna get - if people choose to interpret it as in some way minimizing or passive aggressive then the wider world must be truly abhorrent to them.
Side note, absolutely hate the fact that “they” are trying to take my thumbs up away.
Is that a thing? I use it as a nonverbal backchannel like “uh-huh” or “yeah” or a nod of the head, something quick to indicate that I understand and am following along.
I know in some cultures (North Africa?) it’s the equivalent to the middle finger (🖕)
Using emojis reminds me of all the parents that suddenly spawned on Facebook around 2015. I usually never use emojis other than thumbs up when talking to strangers.
When it comes to close friends on chat, I mostly just combine the cat emoji with hand gestures like 🐱👍, or 🐱👋.
🙂😂💯 I use plenty, the rest barely ever
I do tend to use the custom emoji reacts feature on Fluxer and Discord quite a bit though, though I’m now limited on what emojis cause there’s no way I’m going to pay for Nitro after the bullshit discord pulled
Honestly, I’m waiting for Fluxer to get a mobile app that’s not shite then I’ll probably move more and more of my things to it
I’m old. One of the elder Millennials who grew up on the internet. I stubbornly didn’t use emojis in any context for a very long time, but I did use emoticons sparingly =)
Eventually as more people of more diverse generations started using them in conversation with me, I adapted to kind of speak where they were at. Like you I mostly use them as punctuation at the end of a sentence to help clarify intent if I don’t think it’s clear otherwise. They can help be an indicator like that
Most importantly though, I think we all need to understand that there will never be a really clear consensus on this. We are going to have to learn to communicate with each other where we’re at and if you disregard someone solely on the style in which they use emojis you risk disregarding the opinion of some very intelligent people. And I think, personally, you’re gonna come off as a bit of a dick about it if you feel the need to post responses telling them so. I can’t change your opinions for you but maybe keep that to yourself.
Further notes: I actually include a lot of emojis and ANSI color sequences in my programs and scripts. Drives some people crazy but I find it really helps make some things more readable and draw my attention to things (taking care about what effect this might have on downstream ingestion of course, but most things handle emoji competently these days)
🤷🏽♂️
There are no universal rules about this… like pretty much everything, depends on who you’re talking to and who you want to make a positive impression on.
Excessive amount of Emojis does seem to read as kinda juvenile, tone-deaf and Instagram-marketey to me at least.
I’m aware that usage depends on various factors. The title came off more prescriptive than intended. I have edited it accordingly.
Emojis are not needed and shouldn’t be used.
Now emoticons… 𓁹‿𓁹
Any way but the way my damned coding agent uses them
Maybe this is just because I’m old but I hate them and avoid using them the super majority of the time.
I would be more okay with them if I had some way of making my device render them like the way Unicode glyphs do. I want my text to stay black and white God damn it.
i usually only use stuff like :) ^^ -_-;
emojis like 👍 appear broken on some machines, and tbh i don’t know how to type them other than copy-pasting from somewhere else…
It seems to be highly dependant on culture, context and age. I feel like my generation (millennial) uses emoji the least, as we grew up with digital communication but without emoji. I basically use emoji in a similar way to you - sparingly and rarely more than 1 in a message. Younger and older generations both started using digital means of communication when emoji were already established though, and they tend to use them way more in my experience.
In regards to “wrong” interpretation of emoji, they can also have different established meanings for different cultures. 😪 for example is sometimes used to represent having a cold in the west, but in Asia it represents being sleepy (which is its intended meaning). Or 😉, which is considered suggestive/flirty in anglophone countries, but is used for making a lighthearted joke in Germany.
1990 here and yeah, I use very sparingly. I don’t care what others do because usually I can figure out what’s being expressed easily enough by younger gen.
The line I draw is using them in a serious context like on a debate forum for example. I guess I can’t fully shake off decorum.
Your timing is all wrong
Millenials grew up when emojis had been around since before you were born (they were in XMPP messengers in the mid/late 90’s).
They didn’t make it to phones until about 2005 with devices like the Treo.
Millenials grew up when emojis had been around since before you were born (they were in XMPP messengers in the mid/late 90’s).
Aren’t millennials considered to have started being born in the early 80’s?
I believe the most widely cited range is 1983-1996. '96 is too young IMO. I tend to describe it qualitatively. Millennials were too young to care about the cold war, but old enough to care about 9/11, and were in college or recently graduated just in time for the great recession. So we had an optimistic childhood, were made painfully aware of global geopolitics just as we were becoming adolescents, and got economically punched in the gut just in time to start adulting for real.
we had an optimistic childhood, were made painfully aware of global geopolitics just as we were becoming adolescents, and got economically punched in the gut just in time to start adulting for real.
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it
Mid late 90s is well after many millenials were born.
I was born in 1992 and I’m considers to be on the younger half of the millennial generation
I basically use emoji like you.
Reactions: 👍 = okay. ♥️ = thank you/okay/general affinity. 💯 = I agree (mostly used in group chats). 💪, 🔥🎉,🎊, or 💥 = nice work/congratulations. 🥲, 😢, 💔, or 😭 = I got your message, but I don’t like it.
Sometimes I will use them to emphasize my own messages. Like I will say “Sorry I can’t make it, already have other plans 😭”. But the intent here is to indicate that I am disappointed, but don’t feel too bad about it. I would never say “Sorry your dog died 😭”, because emoji by their nature add too much levity to such a statement.
And then, of course, there are the flirting emoji, 🍑😍😈🔥🤤😏😳😘🥰😍😜🥵🍆💦🚩, which I probably use too much for my own good.
Using multiple emoji in a row is used to indicate emphasis or excitement. So a friend’s announcement of an accomplishment in a group thread might earn a 💪💪💪, or a partner’s sexy pic might get a 🥵🥵🥵 (followed up with an appropriate text response, of course)
The use of multiple emoji to indicate a thought or feeling is used as a joke, basically making fun of the way boomers use emoji. My favorite example being 🎸🇺🇸🦅, which is also an Always Sunny reference.
Interesting. 👌 Is “okay” for me and 👍 is “good job/well done”. I understand that the 👍 is seen as a bit boomer/Karen these days, but I am old and it is sincere, so go figure.
I would never say “Sorry your dog died 😭”, because emoji by their nature add too much levity to such a statement.
I think this depends heavily on which ones you use. The simple ones like 🙁 are fine (IMO); they’re often autocorrected from :( which I’ve never seen as making light of the situation. I use those a lot just to indicate the tone of a message. There’s a big difference between “I’m so sorry 🙁” and “I’m so sorry 😉”.
I’m Gen X, so… with punctuation marks. If it auto corrects to an emoji, I hit back to reverse it back to the punctuation marks.
I don’t hate emoji or even other people using them, especially clever uses. I just don’t use them, myself.
I view emoji usage as a personality thing. people are different and will use them differently. its like huggers and non huggers and type A and type B kinda stuff. introverts and outgoing.
