I finally caught on that my "emoji communication" was totally backward

So last week I was texting my daughter about picking her up from school, and I sent a 😂 after saying I'd be 10 minutes late. She called me immediately and asked if I was mad at her. Turns out, for the last 6 months, she thought the laughing emoji meant I was making fun of her, not that I was laughing at myself for running late. I had been using it in almost every text with her. Now I'm wondering if my coworkers think the same thing when I use it in work chats. Is this just a generational gap thing or is the whole laughing emoji trend fading away for something else?

2 comments

2 Comments

derek99418d ago

My 16 year old nephew told me the skull emoji means "I'm dead from laughing" not actually dead. So now half my texts to him probably looked like I was threatening his life. This whole thing needs a manual or something.

riveradams18d ago

Wait didn't I see someone talking about this on Reddit the other day... apparently the skull emoji is also used for "I'm dead" as in something is so funny it killed me. But yeah I can totally see how that would get confusing with boomers and gen Z mixing up meanings. My mom sent me the crying laughing emoji for years and I thought she was actually crying sad until my sister told me otherwise. It's like we need a dictionary that updates every year just for emojis at this point.