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When I saw the news that Apple would be releasing 217 new emojis into the
world, I did what I always do: I asked my undergraduates what it meant to them.
“We barely use them any more,” they scoffed. To them, many emojis are like
overenthusiastic dance moves at weddings: reserved for awkward millennials.
“And they use them all wrong anyway,” my cohort from generation Z added
earnestly.
My work focuses on how people use technology, and I’ve been following the rise
of the emoji for a decade. With 3,353 characters available and 5 billion sent each
day, emojis are now a significant language system.
When the emoji database is updated, it usually reflects the needs of the time. This
latest update, for instance, features a new vaccine syringe and more same-sex
couples.
But if my undergraduates are anything to go by, emojis are also a generational
😂
battleground. Like skinny jeans and side partings, the “laughing crying emoji”,
better known as , fell into disrepute among the young in 2020 – just five years
after being picked as the Oxford Dictionaries’ 2015 Word of the Year. For gen Z
TikTok users, clueless millennials are responsible for rendering many emojis
utterly unusable – to the point that some in gen Z barely use emojis at all.
Research can help explain these spats over emojis. Because their meaning is
interpreted by users, not dictated from above, emojis have a rich history of creative
use and coded messaging. Apple’s 217 new emojis will be subjected to the same
process of creative interpretation: accepted, rejected or repurposed by different
generations based on pop culture currents and digital trends.
Face the facts

When emojis were first designed by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, they were intended
specifically for the Japanese market. But just over a decade later, the Unicode
Consortium, sometimes described as “the UN for tech”, unveiled these icons to the
whole world.
🙂
In 2011, Instagram tracked the uptake of emojis through user messages, watching
how eclipsed :-) in just a few years. Old-style smileys, using punctuation
marks, now look as outdated as Shakespearean English on our LED screens: a sign
of fogeyness in baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) or an ironic
throwback for the hipsters of gen Z.
The Unicode Consortium now meets each year to consider new types of emoji,
including emojis that support inclusivity. In 2015, a new range of skin colours was
added to existing emojis. In 2021, the Apple operating system update will include
mixed-race and same-sex couples, as well as men and women with beards.
Bitter boomers?
Not everyone has been thrilled by the rise of the emoji. In 2018, a Daily Mail
headline lamented that “Emojis are ruining the English language”, citing research
by Google in which 94% of those surveyed felt that English was deteriorating, in
part because of emoji use.
But such criticisms, which are sometimes levelled by boomers, tend to misinterpret
emojis, which are after all informal and conversational, not formal and oratory.
Studies have found no evidence that emojis have reduced overall literacy.
🔥🔥🔥
Read more: Emoji aren't ruining language: they’re a natural substitute for
gesture
On the contrary, it appears that emojis actually enhance our communicative

capabilities, including in language acquisition. Studies have shown how emojis are
an effective substitute for gestures in non-verbal communication, bringing a new
dimension to text.
😀
A 2013 study, meanwhile, suggested that emojis connect to the area of the brain
associated with recognising facial expressions, making a as nourishing as a
human smile. Given these findings, it’s likely that those who reject emojis actually
impoverish their language capabilities.
Creative criticism
The conflict between gen Z and millennials, meanwhile, emerges from confused
meanings. Although the Unicode Consortium has a definition for each icon,
including the 217 Apple are due to release, out in the wild they often take on new
meanings. Many emojis have more than one meaning: a literal meaning, and a
suggested one, for instance. Subversive, rebellious meanings are often created by
the young: today’s gen Z.
🍆
🧠
The aubergine is a classic example of how an innocent vegetable has had its
meaning creatively repurposed by young people. The brain is an emerging
example of the innocent-turned-dirty emoji canon, which already boasts a large
corpus.
And it doesn’t stop there. With gen Z now at the helm of digital culture, the emoji
encyclopedia is developing new ironic and sarcastic double meanings. It’s no
wonder that millennials can’t keep up, and keep provoking outrage from younger
people who consider themselves to be highly emoji-literate.
Emojis remain powerful means of emotional and creative expression, even if some
in gen Z claim they’ve been made redundant by misuse. This new batch of 217
emojis will be adopted across generations and communities, with each staking their
claim to different meanings and combinations. The stage is set for a new round of
intergenerational mockery.

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When I saw the news that Apple would be releasing 217 new emojis into the

But if my undergraduates are anything to go by, emojis are also a generational

Face the facts

On the contrary, it appears that emojis actually enhance our communicative

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