The Signs are There!
What are your favorite emojis?
I am a huge fan of emojis and I have a set of go to symbols that cover most situations
🤣 – probably my most used when I am on WhatsApp or Social media. It replaced 😂 a few years ago as my go to but I still use both.
👍 – nice and simple and a very easy way of acknowledging a message. It’s not particularly expressive or exciting but it gets the job done.
🎉 – if someone has something to celebrate like a birthday or a promotion or similar. It’s a nice all purpose one that can be replaced or accompanied by a 👏 for a noteworthy personal achievement.
😊 – my smiley reaction has settled on this one nowadays. I have used most of the variations over the years but this seems to be the friendliest.
🤔 – a really effective way of indicating either thoughtfulness or perhaps confusion. I use it most often for the former reason. In the right situation it can also be a indication that the person is barking up the wrong tree!
🙄 – a current favourite because I often look up in my head in real life! Given everything that is happening in the world at the moment I seem to be using it more often than I used to!
🧐 – I had to include this because my work colleague and friend John is the absolute master of emoji use. He uses the monocle when I am writing about ballet or art or anything cultural! I love seeing this one because it always makes me laugh. He has a perfect emoji for every occasion and I definitely learnt to expand my emoji vocabulary from him.
❤️ – I love emojis!
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David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 
My current favourite is definitely 🫠. It has a kind of smiling through the bs or stress aesthetic, though it can obviously be used to say it’s a hot day (which is perhaps why I rarely see it used in the UK). Gen Z have their own use I have found. For instance, the 💀 can be used to indicate laughter. I am now an old fogey so still use 😂, which I think is now seen as incredibly uncool with the young uns. However, it did make me think it’s only a matter of time between these two semiotic worlds collide on a corporate MS Teams chat. Will the young person stay cool and true to themselves, or – more likely – be forced to code switch? And how will other members of staff react to suddenly seeing 💀 in response to some innocuous little workplace joke?
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I had no idea that the skull could mean that. 🤔 I wonder if it’s the school age users rather than the 20s and above because I have never seen any of my kids use that. I will definitely be on the lookout for it though.
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20s is ancient to them – seems to be my kid’s sort of age. I think he is a young gen z/old gen alpha. I have noticed it on You Tube from time to time.
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