Gen Z canceled the ‘hostile’ thumbs-up emoji and wants to ban these 9 others
By Jack Hobbs and Alex Mitchell
October 12, 2022 | 1:39pm
Gen Zers are calling out the popular thumbs-up emoji for being “rude” and “hostile,” even saying they feel attacked whenever they see it used in the workplace.
After a Reddit poster confessed to being “not adult enough to be comfortable with the thumbs-up emoji reaction,” others chimed in to agree and to call out other common emojis such as the red heart.
“For younger people, the thumbs-up emoji is used to be really passive-aggressive,” a 24-year-old Redditor wrote.
“It’s super rude if someone just sends you a thumbs up,” they added. “So I also had a weird time adjusting because my workplace is the same.”
Older workers appeared flummoxed by the reaction, noting they use the thumbs up in work-related chats to signal “I approve” or “I understood and will obey.”
Part of the issue is that young people tend to use the thumbs up in jest.
“I only use it sarcastically, though sometimes I’m not even sure if the irony comes across,” Barry Kennedy, 24, told The Post. He said he only used it to communicate with boomers like his parents or older colleagues.
One anonymous office worker chalked it up to a “generational communication culture difference.”
Several Gen Zers have officially canceled the thumbs-up emoji after it was deemed passive-aggressive.
“Everyone my age in the office doesn’t do it, but the gen X people always do it,” they wrote. “Took me a bit to adjust and get out of my head that it means they’re mad at me.”
Others complained that it comes across as dismissive.
One Reddit user noted that the thumbs up actually means that “I’ve read your message and have nothing [to] add and I hope and pray … all the bazillion people in this group chat have nothing to say on it too.”
Instead, Gen Zers said they’d prefer a typed-out response.
“We’re people and we have words to use,” Kim Law, a 25-year-old social worker from Massapequa, told The Post. “If I took the time out to write a thoughtful message then you shouldn’t be responding with the bare minimum. Fix it and write something real back.”
Several Reddit users agreed with the decision to cancel the emoji, saying that using it in a work environment makes the team members “unaccommodating” and seem “unfriendly.”
Lifestyle and etiquette expert Elaine Swann — who has done corporate training on the matter — advises the avoidance of emojis all around in the professional world, if only to avoid misinterpretation.
“[Emojis] can be interpreted as disrespectful,” Swann told The Post. “It can differ from generation to generation. Across the board, people want to know they’ve been heard and emojis do not convey that for everybody.”
On Reddit, some were less offended by the thumbs-up emoji but felt the heart symbol was actually the most inappropriate.
“To me, the heart is reserved for friends and family, and has a more intimate meaning of love, while thumbs up is just simple agreeing,” commented one person. “I actually find a heart emoji weird for work messages. I use heart emojis for things like when someone says ‘I got a new kitten,’ or ‘Susie did a really great job,'” added another.
But the heart may, too, be falling out of fashion. A survey of 2,000 people conducted by Perspectus Global showed that a majority of people between the ages of 16 and 29 believe that you are “officially old” if you use thumbs-up or heart emoji.
The official list of “canceled” emoji includes:
- Thumbs-up
- Red heart ❤️
- “OK” hand
- Checkmark ✅
- Poo
- Loud crying face
- Monkey covering eyes
- Clapping hands
- Lipstick kiss mark
- Grimacing face
Another study suggested that using the infamous eggplant emoji is actually a major turnoff when it comes to dating.
