30-year-old college student shares new meanings of emojis, according to Gen Z peers: ‘I’ve never felt older’

A 30-year-old college student living in the dorms with the rest of the Gen Z student population has shared the new meanings behind some of the popular emojis, as designated by the younger generation.

Scarlett, a writer and comedian who is currently enrolled at the Savannah College of Art and Design, shared the nuances of emoji use among the younger students in a new video shared to TikTok, where she goes by the username @genwhyscarlett.

“I’m Scarlett, a 30-year-old college student currently living in the dorms alongside Gen Z kids and the following emojis don’t mean what I thought they mean,” Scarlett began the video, referring to the generation born between 1997-2012 after millennials.

According to Scarlett, the first emoji that doesn’t mean what she thought it meant is the thumbs up emoji, with the TikToker explaining that this is “apparently very passive-aggressive these days”.

“So if you get this, be insulted immediately,” she joked as she pointed to the emoji on her screen.

Scarlett then addressed the teary-eye emoji, which she noted “for some godforsaken reason” means “either innocent or horny,” while the popular sideways face emoji that has its tongue out and one eye larger than the other still means “silly,” according to Scarlett, but should actually be used in a “tongue-in-cheek way”.

“They call it ‘silly, goofy mood,’” she explained, before moving on to the next emoji, which sees two fingers pointing at each other from opposite directions, which she said means ashamed or shy, “but also sometimes horny”.

According to Scarlett, the upside-down face emoji, which features a somewhat serene smile, has actually been appointed the meaning “f**k my life,” while the smiling emoji with the sweat droplet means: “I’m stressed but it’s fine.”

Some of the emojis now have darker meanings, according to the TikToker, who referenced the smiling emoji with the teardrop, before moving on to the side-eye emoji, which means “I’m listening”. The college student also referenced some of the emojis that have taken on sexual innuendos, such as the cherries, which she explained are used to indicate breasts.

In the TikTok, Scarlett then shared some of the other emoji etiquette that she has learned from her Gen Z peers, such as the generation’s veto of any emoji that shows teeth.

“I also found out that you should not be using any emoji with teeth in it because it’s ‘cringe’ and you should not be using the mind-blown emoji because that’s also cringe,” she concluded. “You’re welcome everyone!”

On TikTok, where the video has been viewed more than 1m times, viewers have expressed shock and outrage over the updated emoji uses.

“You can pry the [grimacing teeth emoji] from my cold dead hands!!!!” one person commented, while another said: “This is unfortunate because I use the thumbs up emoji at work all the time.”

Someone else revealed that they’d had a woman become upset with them over their usage of the thumbs up emoji, adding that they’d had “no idea” of its passive-aggressive interpretation.

Others revealed that the video had made them feel old and out-of-touch, with one person joking: “I’ve never felt older.”

“Thank you for your service,” someone else said, while another viewer added: “I’ve learned more in this single video than I have on this entire app.”