A 30-year-old woman named Scarlett Alexandra who attends Savannah College of Art & Design lives in a dorm with a bunch of Gen Z’ers. She has taken to TikTok to help shed some light on what Gen Z’ers mean when they use different emojis.
Let’s go through some of what we learned from Scarlett’s helpful TikTok video, shall we?
First up, the thumbs-up-emoji is passive aggressive. I feel like we knew this, though? Not a tough one!
Sad Eyes = Horny or, paradoxically, Innocence
ALSO means “horny”. Gen Z, throw some water over yourselves.
Laughing-sweat man means “Stressed, but Fine”. Again, this one’s not too much of a stretch for our old millennial minds, right?
FML
FML x 100000
Kissy face is “sure!” or “oooooo!”
Boobs.
Silly, goofy mood.
Side eyes? “I’m listening”.
BuzzFeed spoke to Scarlett about her experience bunking with Gen Z’ers. She said:
“I am an RA (resident assistant) in the dorms and surrounded by Gen Z kids between the ages of 18–21 who have an entirely different way of communicating than what I’m used to,” Scarlett told BuzzFeed. “Group chats are a big thing with them, 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!”
“Gen Z is a much kinder generation than you would expect,” she said. “As someone who was bullied on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and Myspace in middle school, I expected the opposite from kids who have never known life without social media…
…It’s also super refreshing to be around youngsters who still have hope in the world as opposed to adults my age who gave up a long time ago. I forgot that there was a time I thought the world was smaller and I had a bigger role in it, and being around so many kids with such big dreams… Well, that’s helped me dream again too.”