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OK Boomer! Tell Me Which Emoji You Use and I’ll Tell You How Old You Are :-)

Some people never use them, some can’t do without them, and some prefer the old-school charm of emoticons. The use of little faces has changed the way we communicate. And it often serves as a generational marker.

The original, antediluvian symbols emerged four decades ago, in the emails of visionary computer scientists who used them to add feeling to otherwise cold written communications. Since then, smiley faces – colon, dash, parenthesis – have come a long way, ultimately becoming a language of their own.

Today, approximately three thousand emoji are available on various operating systems. Considering how frequently people use them on their smartphones, that number is only going to increase.
Our tweets, chats, social media posts and emails are filled with facial expressions, animals, food, vehicles, everyday objects, symbols and whatever else can be represented with a picture.

The alphabet on its own isn’t enough anymore. We want to thwart the staid electronic filter through which we channel our communications by adding color and animation to our messages.

Everyone Loves Emoji

If you don’t count the purists, who are horrified at the very thought of adding a smiley face to a sentence, and the nostalgic types who rely exclusively on old-school emoticons (that is, the smiley faces composed of punctuation marks :-D), most people today consider emoji an integral part of language.

According to research conducted by Adobe in various countries around the world, the most in-demand emoji in 2021 was the crying laughing face, followed by the thumbs up and the eternally popular red heart. Research also indicates that people of all ages use these little faces and symbols.
Think Using Smileys Makes You Seem Younger?
Sorry to disappoint you, but no.

A survey of thousands by Adobe has confirmed what we had always suspected as we skimmed the Facebook walls of our parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents. Namely, the meaning and context of emojis varies according to the generation using them: Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), GenXers (1965-1979), Millennials (1980-1995) and Gen Z.
The older you are, the more likely you are to be didactic with your emojis, whereas the younger you are, the more creatively – even metaphorically – you deploy them.

A Few Examples

To describe joy or fun, Boomers use the smiling emoji and millennials prefer the crying laughing face while members of GenZ opt for the rocket or airplane symbols to suggest they’re “soaring,” or the coffin and skull to say: “I’m dead.”Thumbs up, the OK sign, clapping hands, the kiss mark = Boomer territory.

Cowboy hat emoji, person standing, cold face, a pair of eyes: Gen Z (and if you don’t get it, you’re old!)

Let’s Take a Ride
A train, a boat, a scooter, a bicycle… for motor scooters, just about all operating systems share a single, iconic image: the Vespa. No surprises there.

I’m Sorry, You Misunderstood Me.

If you like emojis, you understand the importance of gauging their appropriateness to different situations: it’s best to avoid them in formal or work-related communications, for instance, unless you have a friendly relationship with your colleagues. Always make sparing use of emojis of questionable taste.

That same Adobe report found people distrust certain emoji, such as the eggplant, the peach and the clown face. To avoid embarrassment, best not to use the winking emoji, considered cringeworthy by the youngest generation and flirtatious among the older set. When in doubt, stop texting and pick up the phone.