Rosario Monachino
A 30-year-old ‘elderly student’ has shared her experience of sharing a dormitory with younger students – otherwise known as Gen Zers – and how she’s learned the true meaning of some emojis.
Emojis are a huge part of our discourse, with people using them in everyday conversations over text or direct messages.
Each one can have a number of meanings though.
A laughing face to one person means they’ve found something funny, but to someone else, it could be a sarcastic response.
The crying face also has many meanings, from sadness to overwhelming joy.
Then there is the aubergine emoji – which we all know doesn’t just represent fruit.
Related Article: People Only Just Realising What The GPT In ChatGPT Stands For
Related Article: Gen Z Think That The Thumbs Up Emoji Is Rude And ‘Passive Aggressive
Scarlett is best known by her TikTok account @genwhyscarlett, and she describes herself as an ‘elderly student’.
In a post that has been viewed 4.5 million times, the TikToker shares how shocked she is after learning the X-rated meanings behind some of her favourite emojis.
Chatting to BuzzFeed, she says: “Group chats are a big thing with them [students], so the rapid-fire communication style has been a learning curve for me. Specifically with emojis, memes, and phrases.
“I’m the first one to laugh at myself for being old and obsolete, so I’m always asking questions and my Gen Z peers are more than happy to indulge me.”
She shares some commonly misunderstood emojis – plus, what Gen-Z thinks they stand for.
Scarlett reveals that the thumbs-up emoji is supposed to be passive-aggressive, while the upside-down smiley face means ‘f*** my life’.
She also found out that cherries apparently mean b***s.
People have taken to the comments to react to her discovery, with one person saying: “This is unfortunate because I use this [thumbs up emoji] at work all the time.”
Someone else writes: “I use the thumbs up non-passive aggressively so uh maybe I need to go apologise to some people.”
A third adds: “That’s why this girl got crazy mad at me when I gave a thumbs-up reaction to a Facebook message?! I respond that way to everything! IRL too!”
Related Article: Legal Expert Warns To Be Careful Sending Thumbs-Up Emojis After Man Is Ordered To Pay $62,258
Related Article: Huge Facebook Glitch Saw App Auto-Sending Friend Requests After You Looked At Someone’s Profile
Another person says: “I used to have a coworker who used [upside down smiley face emoji] to mean deliriously happy and I was so confused.”
In a clip showing the cute eyes emoji in question, she says: “This, for some godforsaken reason means either ‘innocent’ or ‘h***y’.”
A fifth viewer comments: “OK but have [eye emoji] mean ‘I’m listening’ is actually perfect since you are reading the texts lol.”
“I thought the cute eye emoji meant something was really cute,” somebody else writes.
@genwhyscarlett 🤯 #emojis #genzhumor #millennials #millennialsoftiktok #themoreyouknow ♬ original sound – Scarlett
Do you have a story for us? If so, email us at [email protected]. All contact will be treated in confidence.
