In recent weeks, two generations of internet savvy in videos and comments on TikTok have collided with the hallmarks of millennium culture now considered uncool by Gen Z.The list includes skinny jeans (Gen Z verdict: set them on fire ), side parts (Gen Z pronunciation: middle part or bust) and perhaps most painful of all, the popular laughing crying emoji that some millennials, including myself, use hundreds of times a day or more.
“What’s wrong with the smiling emoji[?], ”one user asked in a TikTok comment. Another replied,“ It’s that bad. “In another video of a woman saying she uses it less after learning that kids don’t, a teenager said,” As a 15 year old I say you should use that emoji bc [because] we certainly will not. “
“I use everything except the smiling emoji,” 21-year-old Walid Mohammed told CNN Business. “I quit a while ago because I saw older people using it, like my mom, my older siblings, and just older people in general.”
For many Gen Zers, the skull emoji has become a popular replacement for conveying laughter. It is the visual version of the slang phrase “I am dead” or “I am dying”, which means that something is very funny. Other acceptable alternatives: the emoji (officially called “Loudly Crying Face”), or just write “lol” (laughing out loud) or “lmao” (laughing, well, you probably know the rest).
Seventeen-year-old Xavier Martin called the “laugh” emoji “bland” and said that “not too many people” his age use it. Stacy Thiru, 21, prefers the real crying emoji because it shows a more extreme emotion and feels more dramatic. She said she couldn’t even find the laughing crying emoji on her iPhone’s keyboard.
A similar emoji called “Rolling on the Floor Laughing” is also no longer in vogue. When asked about that emoji during a video call, Thiru visibly grimaced. “I don’t like them,” she said. “My mom doesn’t even use it.”
“Face with Tears of Joy”, the official name for the laughing crying emoji, is currently the most used emoji on Emojitracker, a website that shows real-time emoji usage on Twitter. It topped Emojipedia’s list of the most used emojis on Twitter in 2020, while the “Loudly Crying Face” took second place. And it has lasting power: In 2017, Apple said the laughing crying emoji was most popular in the United States.
“Tears of Joy was a victim of its own success,” said Gretchen McCulloch, an Internet linguist and author of “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language.”
“If you report digital laughter in the same way for years, it starts to feel insincere … The exaggeration wears out with continued use,” she said. That’s why Gen Zers may be looking for new and new ways to express themselves laughing in different ways.
Gen Zers – born after 1996 – grew up at a time when the Internet was already ubiquitous and often in the palm of their hand. In comparison, some millennials remember a time before the constant immersion on the Internet; many have entered the world of emojis and internet jargon, not through text messages or social networks, but through AOL Instant Messenger. (According to the Pew Research Center, millennials were born between 1981 and 1996).
Anecdotally, older generations are using emojis literally, while younger people are getting more creative, said Jeremy Burge, the chief emoji officer of Emojipedia, an emoji dictionary website. Emojipedia recently wrote a blog post saying, “It’s common knowledge on TikTok that the laughing crying emoji is for boomers.”
Gen Zers told CNN Business that they like to assign their own meaning to emoji, which then spreads to others in their cohort, often through social media. For example, the emoji of a person in a cowboy hat () and that of a person just standing have both come to indicate clumsiness. Others will string together some positive emojis, such as stars, rainbows, and fairies, and then link them to something negative. “Our generation is very sarcastic,” said Martin.
Sometimes teens and twenties use emoji – like the laughing crying one – ironically, for example sending six or seven of them to friends in a row to overdo it. But overall, that emoji is a no-go.
“For Gen Z, it’s like having an Android,” said Mohammed.
The video in the above media player was used in a previous report.
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