Apparently emojis are not immune to cancel culture and the following ten emojis are considered either passive aggressive, hostile, or simply only used by “old” people. I’m shaking my head as I write this because come on! Do we really have nothing better to do than to judge people young or old for the damn emojis they use? Anyway…

The top ten list of emojis that Gen Z has cancelled for the rest of us for various reasons is:

Thumbs Up 👍🏻

Red Heart ❤️

OK 👌🏻

Kiss 💋

Poo 💩

Monkey 🙈

Check Mark ✔️

Clapping 👏🏻

Grimace 😬

Crying 😭

I mean I never understood the popularity of some of these anyway (I’m talking about you 💩), but honestly, I didn’t get all bent out of shape about it and tell people they shouldn’t use it. To each their own, right?! But seriously, they are just emojis and their use only came about when people started communicating more via online chats and text messages because not everyone could get the nuance of the written word.

So, we needed pictures to tells us someone was laughing out loud, sad, or being sarcastic. Talk about dumbing it down. And now we are so concerned with whether someone uses these emojis in a literal or ironic way, that we actually have news articles written about what emojis are being cancelled. And here I am adding to the noise. Honestly people, there truly are much more urgent and newsworthy topics out there, and they aren’t that difficult to stumble upon. Give it a try!

So, what do I do as a Gen Xer when faced with this emoji dilemma? I write a blog post about it, encouraging everyone to use the above mentioned emojis as much as possible. We must lead the resistance! We can’t let them sensor our emoji use! Viva La Thumbs Up Emoji! And if you can’t get the nuance of the above statement, let me insert an emoji to illustrate exactly what you should take away from it. 🙄

ok ok, I’ll calm down. Not that I was too riled up anyway, but yeah. Cancel culture is out of control. It’s no longer ok for people to have differing opinions and to share those opinions publicly, and that’s not ok. To force people to share your opinions or beliefs or else face cancellations and ridicule is no way to get society on your side. Civil discourse is the cornerstone of society.

Until next… be loving, be kind, be better! And try not to take things so seriously.