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.

  • ccunning@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    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?

    • early_riser@lemmy.worldOP
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      15 hours ago

      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.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        3 hours ago

        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