I use emojis very sparingly, usually at the end of a sentence analogous to a punctuation mark. I never use more than two in a row, and never more than one of the same one.
In texting and messaging apps (as well as emails if I’m using Outlook) I may respond with a single emoji, often 👍, to indicate that I received the message and will comply with any requests.
The above demonstrates what I believe are the ideal use of emojis, as a compact way to express an otherwise unwieldy response, or a way to convey things like tone of voice and facial expression that is present in a face to face conversation but not in writing.
However, In my opinion, emojis rob the conversation of any gravitas whatsoever, so responding to “My dog died yesterday” with “I’m so sorry 😭😭😭” makes it sound like you’re making light of the situation. I get others may not feel the same way, so I don’t call them out when they do it, but it rubs me the wrong way personally.
Most screen readers will read out the unicode description of the character or render the description as a transcriber’s note on a braille display, so 🤮 is announced as face vomiting and written ⠈⠨⠣⠋⠁⠉⠑⠀⠧⠕⠍⠊⠞⠬⠈⠨⠜. If you spam a bunch (🔥🔥🔥🤣🤣🤣) it can quickly get very long.
It’s also apparent that people use the “wrong” emoji for the situation, and I don’t mean in the sense that the semantics of the symbol have widened or changed with usage. 😂 is often used to express sadness, when the description is “face with tears of joy”. 😢"crying face" would be much more apt.
On Lemmy? Never.
In instant messages etc, usually to convey things like tone that can’t easily come through over text alone. They can also help soften things.
Or as reactions to messages to express something when you don’t have much else to say. Or when it’d take time to write your response.
Any way but the way my damned coding agent uses them
Maybe this is just because I’m old but I hate them and avoid using them the super majority of the time.
I would be more okay with them if I had some way of making my device render them like the way Unicode glyphs do. I want my text to stay black and white God damn it.
Emojis are not needed and shouldn’t be used.
Now emoticons… 𓁹‿𓁹
i usually only use stuff like :) ^^ -_-;
emojis like 👍 appear broken on some machines, and tbh i don’t know how to type them other than copy-pasting from somewhere else…
🤷🏽♂️
There are no universal rules about this… like pretty much everything, depends on who you’re talking to and who you want to make a positive impression on.
Excessive amount of Emojis does seem to read as kinda juvenile, tone-deaf and Instagram-marketey to me at least.
I’m aware that usage depends on various factors. The title came off more prescriptive than intended. I have edited it accordingly.
I basically use emoji like you.
Reactions: 👍 = okay. ♥️ = thank you/okay/general affinity. 💯 = I agree (mostly used in group chats). 💪, 🔥🎉,🎊, or 💥 = nice work/congratulations. 🥲, 😢, 💔, or 😭 = I got your message, but I don’t like it.
Sometimes I will use them to emphasize my own messages. Like I will say “Sorry I can’t make it, already have other plans 😭”. But the intent here is to indicate that I am disappointed, but don’t feel too bad about it. I would never say “Sorry your dog died 😭”, because emoji by their nature add too much levity to such a statement.
And then, of course, there are the flirting emoji, 🍑😍😈🔥🤤😏😳😘🥰😍😜🥵🍆💦🚩, which I probably use too much for my own good.
Using multiple emoji in a row is used to indicate emphasis or excitement. So a friend’s announcement of an accomplishment in a group thread might earn a 💪💪💪, or a partner’s sexy pic might get a 🥵🥵🥵 (followed up with an appropriate text response, of course)
The use of multiple emoji to indicate a thought or feeling is used as a joke, basically making fun of the way boomers use emoji. My favorite example being 🎸🇺🇸🦅, which is also an Always Sunny reference.
I would never say “Sorry your dog died 😭”, because emoji by their nature add too much levity to such a statement.
I think this depends heavily on which ones you use. The simple ones like 🙁 are fine (IMO); they’re often autocorrected from :( which I’ve never seen as making light of the situation. I use those a lot just to indicate the tone of a message. There’s a big difference between “I’m so sorry 🙁” and “I’m so sorry 😉”.
I view emoji usage as a personality thing. people are different and will use them differently. its like huggers and non huggers and type A and type B kinda stuff. introverts and outgoing.
My daughters (21 &18) both say emoji’s are cringe and are migrating from majority texts back to voice calls.
I’m Gen X, so… with punctuation marks. If it auto corrects to an emoji, I hit back to reverse it back to the punctuation marks.
I don’t hate emoji or even other people using them, especially clever uses. I just don’t use them, myself.
It seems to be highly dependant on culture, context and age. I feel like my generation (millennial) uses emoji the least, as we grew up with digital communication but without emoji. I basically use emoji in a similar way to you - sparingly and rarely more than 1 in a message. Younger and older generations both started using digital means of communication when emoji were already established though, and they tend to use them way more in my experience.
In regards to “wrong” interpretation of emoji, they can also have different established meanings for different cultures. 😪 for example is sometimes used to represent having a cold in the west, but in Asia it represents being sleepy (which is its intended meaning). Or 😉, which is considered suggestive/flirty in anglophone countries, but is used for making a lighthearted joke in Germany.
1990 here and yeah, I use very sparingly. I don’t care what others do because usually I can figure out what’s being expressed easily enough by younger gen.
The line I draw is using them in a serious context like on a debate forum for example. I guess I can’t fully shake off decorum.
Your timing is all wrong
Millenials grew up when emojis had been around since before you were born (they were in XMPP messengers in the mid/late 90’s).
They didn’t make it to phones until about 2005 with devices like the Treo.
Millenials grew up when emojis had been around since before you were born (they were in XMPP messengers in the mid/late 90’s).
Aren’t millennials considered to have started being born in the early 80’s?
I believe the most widely cited range is 1983-1996. '96 is too young IMO. I tend to describe it qualitatively. Millennials were too young to care about the cold war, but old enough to care about 9/11, and were in college or recently graduated just in time for the great recession. So we had an optimistic childhood, were made painfully aware of global geopolitics just as we were becoming adolescents, and got economically punched in the gut just in time to start adulting for real.
we had an optimistic childhood, were made painfully aware of global geopolitics just as we were becoming adolescents, and got economically punched in the gut just in time to start adulting for real.
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it
Mid late 90s is well after many millenials were born.
I was born in 1992 and I’m considers to be on the younger half of the millennial generation
I use them as reactions on platforms that support it. Someone sends a PR and I react with eye emoji for looking at it, checkmark for done, or speech bubble for comments. It takes less space than a full text response. Especially in damned Teams that doesn’t have threads in chats, so you can’t even group your responses.
That’s pretty much it. I don’t use them as punctuation and rarely use them in an actual message
My use of emojis depends on who I’m talking to. If they use it, I use it at the same frequency. If they don’t, I don’t.
