7 ms·

I was a hold-out for quite a while, like the author, because they felt very twee. The one that convinced me though was the thumbs-up emoji, which can be an enti

I was a hold-out for quite a while, like the author, because they felt very twee. The one that convinced me though was the thumbs-up emoji, which can be an entire reply to an email or text, that says "I've read this, and we don't need to continue the conversation", with undertones of agreement or a thank-you. Somehow single-word replies like "Gotcha" or "Yes" felt too curt, and anything longer invited further discussion where I didn't want any. I don't really use any other emojis though - I love using language too much, and all of the others feel like I can express myself better through words.

dijit 3y ago
Yet (and I'm sorry to generalise); Gen-Z "typically finds thumbs up emoji passive aggressive" https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/gen-z-has-hidden-meanings-for-emojis-beyond-rude-thumbs-up/ https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/gen-z-has-hidden-meanings-for-...
- e40 3y ago
  First, NY Post? F them and the horse they rode in on. They stoke culture wars at every turn. Second, even if it was true (which I doubt), there are some things which should be ignored and someone believing this nonsense should not be coddled. I'm very liberal, but this is just pure nonsense.
  - tayo42 3y ago
    Idk that's how I interpret the thumbs up after I say something. In my mind it's comes off like a dismissive "that's cool". Like what ever I said isn't worthy of a text response. Idk it's a little odd to explain I guess
    - jameshart 3y ago
      I think it means something very different in a work slack thread than a text chat with friends. In a work context, it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to want to briefly communicate ‘go ahead you have my approval’ and not mean anything snarky by it. Yet if I’m messaging with my friends and they ask about going for drinks Saturday, and I say ‘go ahead, you have my approval’, that’s going to come off as pretty passive aggressive too.
  - smegsicle 3y ago
    :thumbsup:
  - msrenee 3y ago
    It's used like that on Facebook a lot. You're welcome to your opinion on correct use and interpretation of emojis, but that doesn't stop others from using them the way they feel is appropriate.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I've found that different subcultures can apply very different connotations to emojis (as well as other communications things). I think it's a fool's errand to try to find a usage that carries the same subtext for all subcultures. This is largely a "know your audience" sort of thing. My approach is to just write like I normally do when I don't know the peculiarities of the specific people I'm talking with. In general, they will know you aren't "on the inside" and will understand that you don't know what the various connotations are. Even if they'll mock you for it later amongst themselves.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- overgard 3y ago
  I think I'd rather be perceived old than follow Gen Z's weird rules, if that article is to be believed. I will keep my slight smiley thank you very much
- skeaker 3y ago
  This is context sensitive. As in spoken conversation, if your buddy comes up and shares a cool story with you, silently responding with a thumbs up would be rude. If you're coordinating with a team, a thumbs up is a respectful and commonly understood gesture to indicate that you approve/understand.
  - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
    Very much so - you need to be careful using things like 'facepunch' (which is a very weird name for the fistbump emoji) or the pray/thanks/hi-five emoji.
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  Young people trolling journalists who ask them stupid questions is a long-standing tradition that Gen Z has not abandoned.
- deathanatos 3y ago
  AFAICT, the entire "Gen Z finds thumbs up passive aggressive" is fake news; it got started somewhere, and then copy/pasted across news sites with nobody doing an ounce of journalistic fact checking. E.g., this chain [1] → [2] → [3] chains back to the Reddit post ([3]) which has a grand total of … 26 upvotes (on the day the Today article is written)? … and AFAICT, the reddit post is what kicks off the news copypastafest. That's not a reliable source to then label an entire generation. "Journalists" getting their "facts" from r/Adulting … sigh. (Note that your NYPost article falls, chronologically, between [1] and [2], and note the dates on them all. There's a few other citations in the Today post … like an employee at Today, tweets, (it must have been a rather slow week) … and a (different) NYPost article whose citation is … the same Reddit post! The closet we get is then a jump to a Yahoo article which claims an unsourced survey for its data.) (AFAICT talking to people, everyone I've seen who thinks this is a thing appears to think such because they've encountered these news posts / reposts of this, not because they genuinely hold the belief themselves. Self-fulfilling prophecy, at this point. Though now that I've invoked a weird form of Cunningham's Law, I'm sure someone will tell me they're the one, and that there are dozens of them out there. Tell me why you can't just read :+1: in an "assume best intent" light and treat it as the literal "ack/agree/yes" that it's probably meant as, and what, you want me to spam everyone with reply notifications instead of just a reaction…?) (There is also an episode of Dr. Phil out there that goes into how a bunch of emoji are supposedly poisoned one way or another, again with nary a citation to most of it, or they're saying "X emoji is ruined" where, no, it's only ruined if you use it in a particular context where the meaning of the emoji isn't the original meaning, but rather the context puns it to something else. Cf. the eggplant emoji.) [1]: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/10/28/gen-z-thumbs-up-emoji-passive-aggressive-red-heart-laugh-cry-canceled/ https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/10/28/gen-z-thumbs-up-... [2]: https://www.today.com/news/news/thumbs-up-emoji-debate-rcna52089 https://www.today.com/news/news/thumbs-up-emoji-debate-rcna5... [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20221013050626/https://www.reddit.com/r/Adulting/comments/rhie1e/am_i_not_adult_enough_to_be_comfortable_with_the/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221013050626/https://www.reddi...
e40 3y ago
Also, in slack an emoji response doesn't need to be cleared (so it doesn't count toward a notification count). That is what got me on board.
- paradox460 3y ago
  And if you send a message that's only +<emoji>, slack will use it as a reaction on the immediately preceding message
  - e40 3y ago
    I did not know that. Thanks.
  - deathanatos 3y ago
    I do wish Slack would "target" the last message the moment one types the "+" though. There's a TOCTOU bug of sorts with the current setup where someone can ninja a reaction out from under you. Easily correctable … but can be momentarily confusing or comedic, depending on how much common sense the other end has.
  - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
    Ok, this could trim some valuable time from my work day, thanks! Although I guess that could be risky in multi-person chats...
- sanitycheck 3y ago
  Which leads to me asking a question and never getting a notification of an answer, because some idiot just thumbs-upped the question. Also, thumbs-upping the question, what does that even mean? It's a good question? I also have this question? The answer is yes? What if it wasn't a yes/no question? o_O
  - e40 3y ago
    I agree, that's unhelpful. Honestly, never seen that happen in my years of slack use.
Modified3019 3y ago
Yeah me and my coworkers make heavy use to the thumbs up as a “got it/acknowledged”, because we work in ag driving in and out of cell range, so it lets the sender know the herd of cats got their message and will be acted upon, instead of fucking radio silence or a gish gallop of unwanted text.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
overgard 3y ago
I've always been afraid of using thumbs up because I've heard in some cultures as a gesture it means "up yours", although I suppose at this point almost everyone realizes what it means in a global/digital sense.
paradox460 3y ago
I like the eyes emoji for "seen it" or "looking into it" and the thumbs up for agreement
layer8 3y ago
I find the thumbs-up emoji to be too ambiguous, because visually it can mean either an approval or an encouragement, but it’s often used just as an acknowledgment. However I’d like to express an acknowledgment without implying an approval. Besides, as the sibling notes, it can be slightly negative, because a mere thumbs-up means that you didn’t find it worth to bother typing some actual text.

dijit 3y ago

Yet (and I'm sorry to generalise); Gen-Z "typically finds thumbs up emoji passive aggressive" https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/gen-z-has-hidden-meanings-for-emojis-beyond-rude-thumbs-up/ https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/gen-z-has-hidden-meanings-for-...

e40 3y ago
First, NY Post? F them and the horse they rode in on. They stoke culture wars at every turn. Second, even if it was true (which I doubt), there are some things which should be ignored and someone believing this nonsense should not be coddled. I'm very liberal, but this is just pure nonsense.
- tayo42 3y ago
  Idk that's how I interpret the thumbs up after I say something. In my mind it's comes off like a dismissive "that's cool". Like what ever I said isn't worthy of a text response. Idk it's a little odd to explain I guess
  - jameshart 3y ago
    I think it means something very different in a work slack thread than a text chat with friends. In a work context, it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to want to briefly communicate ‘go ahead you have my approval’ and not mean anything snarky by it. Yet if I’m messaging with my friends and they ask about going for drinks Saturday, and I say ‘go ahead, you have my approval’, that’s going to come off as pretty passive aggressive too.
- smegsicle 3y ago
  :thumbsup:
- msrenee 3y ago
  It's used like that on Facebook a lot. You're welcome to your opinion on correct use and interpretation of emojis, but that doesn't stop others from using them the way they feel is appropriate.
JohnFen 3y ago
I've found that different subcultures can apply very different connotations to emojis (as well as other communications things). I think it's a fool's errand to try to find a usage that carries the same subtext for all subcultures. This is largely a "know your audience" sort of thing. My approach is to just write like I normally do when I don't know the peculiarities of the specific people I'm talking with. In general, they will know you aren't "on the inside" and will understand that you don't know what the various connotations are. Even if they'll mock you for it later amongst themselves.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
overgard 3y ago
I think I'd rather be perceived old than follow Gen Z's weird rules, if that article is to be believed. I will keep my slight smiley thank you very much
skeaker 3y ago
This is context sensitive. As in spoken conversation, if your buddy comes up and shares a cool story with you, silently responding with a thumbs up would be rude. If you're coordinating with a team, a thumbs up is a respectful and commonly understood gesture to indicate that you approve/understand.
- oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
  Very much so - you need to be careful using things like 'facepunch' (which is a very weird name for the fistbump emoji) or the pray/thanks/hi-five emoji.
plorkyeran 3y ago
Young people trolling journalists who ask them stupid questions is a long-standing tradition that Gen Z has not abandoned.
deathanatos 3y ago
AFAICT, the entire "Gen Z finds thumbs up passive aggressive" is fake news; it got started somewhere, and then copy/pasted across news sites with nobody doing an ounce of journalistic fact checking. E.g., this chain [1] → [2] → [3] chains back to the Reddit post ([3]) which has a grand total of … 26 upvotes (on the day the Today article is written)? … and AFAICT, the reddit post is what kicks off the news copypastafest. That's not a reliable source to then label an entire generation. "Journalists" getting their "facts" from r/Adulting … sigh. (Note that your NYPost article falls, chronologically, between [1] and [2], and note the dates on them all. There's a few other citations in the Today post … like an employee at Today, tweets, (it must have been a rather slow week) … and a (different) NYPost article whose citation is … the same Reddit post! The closet we get is then a jump to a Yahoo article which claims an unsourced survey for its data.) (AFAICT talking to people, everyone I've seen who thinks this is a thing appears to think such because they've encountered these news posts / reposts of this, not because they genuinely hold the belief themselves. Self-fulfilling prophecy, at this point. Though now that I've invoked a weird form of Cunningham's Law, I'm sure someone will tell me they're the one, and that there are dozens of them out there. Tell me why you can't just read :+1: in an "assume best intent" light and treat it as the literal "ack/agree/yes" that it's probably meant as, and what, you want me to spam everyone with reply notifications instead of just a reaction…?) (There is also an episode of Dr. Phil out there that goes into how a bunch of emoji are supposedly poisoned one way or another, again with nary a citation to most of it, or they're saying "X emoji is ruined" where, no, it's only ruined if you use it in a particular context where the meaning of the emoji isn't the original meaning, but rather the context puns it to something else. Cf. the eggplant emoji.) [1]: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/10/28/gen-z-thumbs-up-emoji-passive-aggressive-red-heart-laugh-cry-canceled/ https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/10/28/gen-z-thumbs-up-... [2]: https://www.today.com/news/news/thumbs-up-emoji-debate-rcna52089 https://www.today.com/news/news/thumbs-up-emoji-debate-rcna5... [3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20221013050626/https://www.reddit.com/r/Adulting/comments/rhie1e/am_i_not_adult_enough_to_be_comfortable_with_the/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221013050626/https://www.reddi...

e40 3y ago

Also, in slack an emoji response doesn't need to be cleared (so it doesn't count toward a notification count). That is what got me on board.

paradox460 3y ago
And if you send a message that's only +<emoji>, slack will use it as a reaction on the immediately preceding message
- e40 3y ago
  I did not know that. Thanks.
- deathanatos 3y ago
  I do wish Slack would "target" the last message the moment one types the "+" though. There's a TOCTOU bug of sorts with the current setup where someone can ninja a reaction out from under you. Easily correctable … but can be momentarily confusing or comedic, depending on how much common sense the other end has.
- oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
  Ok, this could trim some valuable time from my work day, thanks! Although I guess that could be risky in multi-person chats...
sanitycheck 3y ago
Which leads to me asking a question and never getting a notification of an answer, because some idiot just thumbs-upped the question. Also, thumbs-upping the question, what does that even mean? It's a good question? I also have this question? The answer is yes? What if it wasn't a yes/no question? o_O
- e40 3y ago
  I agree, that's unhelpful. Honestly, never seen that happen in my years of slack use.

Modified3019 3y ago

Yeah me and my coworkers make heavy use to the thumbs up as a “got it/acknowledged”, because we work in ag driving in and out of cell range, so it lets the sender know the herd of cats got their message and will be acted upon, instead of fucking radio silence or a gish gallop of unwanted text.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

overgard 3y ago

I've always been afraid of using thumbs up because I've heard in some cultures as a gesture it means "up yours", although I suppose at this point almost everyone realizes what it means in a global/digital sense.

paradox460 3y ago

I like the eyes emoji for "seen it" or "looking into it" and the thumbs up for agreement

layer8 3y ago

I find the thumbs-up emoji to be too ambiguous, because visually it can mean either an approval or an encouragement, but it’s often used just as an acknowledgment. However I’d like to express an acknowledgment without implying an approval. Besides, as the sibling notes, it can be slightly negative, because a mere thumbs-up means that you didn’t find it worth to bother typing some actual text.