Once again, Gen Z is making the rest of the world feel old, and this time, it’s all to do with emojis.
If you didn’t know, Gen Zs are those who were born between the years 1997 and 2012 and are now aged from 12-27.
Those people are the digital generation, who grew up with computers, phones, tablets and social media.
Meanwhile, we millennials had to suffer through dial-up, paying for Wi-Fi on our phones, and going through hell with MySpace and Bebo social media.
Even though we were present when emojis were first created, it seems like we’ve been pushed out of the loop, and now Gen Z are calling us old if we haven’t moved away from certain ones.
Gen Z have dubbed certain emojis as being ‘old’ (Getty Stock Images)
Spoilers: I’ve peeked, and I use this emoji.
According to the hosts of RTÉ FM, a study has dubbed anyone who still uses the crying with laughter emoji as ‘not cool’.
While we’re out here LOLing and LMAO, Gen Z is much more likely to use the skull emoji to share that something is funny, which is related to the fact that they say ‘I’m dead’ when something makes them laugh.
But this isn’t new information.
In 2021, Walid Mohammed told CNN Business when he was 21: “I use everything but the laughing emoji. I stopped using it a while back because I saw older people using it, like my mom, my older siblings and just older people in general.”
Okay, that’s offensive.
That’s how I feel about people using the thumbs-up emoji. It’s sarcastic, and I won’t explain why it feels that way.
So is the smiley face emoji.
Sadly, when it comes to the crying laughing face, linguist Gretchen McCulloch said: “If you indicate digital laughter for years and years in the same way, it starts to feel insincere. … The hyperbole gets worn out through continued use. That’s why Gen Zers may be looking to fresh and novel ways to signal they’re laughing through different ways.”
Now, if that wasn’t mad enough, the founder of Emojipedia, Jeremy Burge, wrote on the website’s blog: “It’s common wisdom on TikTok that the laughing-crying emoji is for boomers.”
As for why Gen Z have been switching up the lingo, digital content creator Srishti Garg said it’s because the generation is ‘unhinged’ and ‘nonchalant’ and goes all out.
They said: “A lot of us are suffering from ‘brainrot’ (not literally), and that has translated into the way we make conversation. I like to go all out when expressing myself by using the funkiest emojis, like the one with its tongue out (for crazy).”
Well, that’s sad for us millennials.
