Gen Z Says The ? Emoji Isn't Cool Anymore And Now I Am Going To Use It Even More

Dear Gen Z, I don’t care what you think is uncool.

Many of the things you do make no freaking sense at all and you don’t see me trying to make you feel bad for it.

But here we are – Gen Z – the generation that thinks they can come onto our turf and tell us what we can and cannot do.

First they told us that skinny jeans were out then they said side-parts were so out of style.

And now they are trying to take our ? emoji away from us? Uh, yeah I think not.

Gen Z is going after people on social media (mostly TikTok) for using the ? emoji.

“What’s wrong with the laughing emoji[?],” one user asked in a TikTok comment. Another responded: “it’s so off.”

On a different video of a woman saying she’s cut back on using it after learning kids don’t, one teen commented: “As a 15 year old I say you should use that emoji bc [because] we sure aren’t going to.”

So, how can we be “cool” among Gen Z?

Apparently Gen Z-ers use the ? emoji and it has become a popular replacement for conveying laughter.

It’s the visual version of the slang phrase “I’m dead” or “I’m dying,” which signifies something is very funny.

Other acceptable alternatives: the ? emoji (officially called “Loudly Crying Face”), or just writing “lol” (laughing out loud) or “lmao” (laughing my, well, you probably know the rest).

Let me just say something here – lol and lmao is something us millennials invented. Yeah, I used those in the 7th grade so take that Gen Z!

Oh and the “Face with Tears of Joy,” the official name for the laughing crying emoji, is currently the most-used emoji on Emojitracker which is a website that shows real-time emoji use on Twitter.