Beyond Words: Understanding How Youth and Teens Use Emojis in Their Onlife World

Caveat: This is a follow up article to the one we posted yesterday titled, “Beyond Rizz and Brainrot: What Teen Slang Can Teach Adults About Youth Digital Culture” (1). 

Much like youth slang, there is no universal dictionary that can reliably tell a parent, caregiver, or educator what every emoji means when used by a young person. Emojis can have commonly understood meanings, but those meanings can change depending on age, peer group, culture, platform, context, surrounding words, other emojis, and even the relationship between the sender and receiver. An emoji that means one thing in one conversation can mean something completely different in another. This is particularly important given the growing number of online articles and social media posts claiming to reveal the “secret emoji codes” youth and teens are supposedly using. Some of these interpretations are legitimate, some are highly contextual, and others can create unnecessary fear when presented without nuance.

If you have ever received a text message from a teenager containing nothing more than 💀, 😭, or 👀 and wondered what exactly they were trying to tell you, welcome to another fascinating part of today’s onlife world.

Emojis have become an important component of digital communication. What began as relatively simple visual symbols intended to add emotion and expression to text has evolved into something much more sophisticated. Today, emojis can communicate humour, sarcasm, affection, embarrassment, attraction, agreement, disagreement, irony, frustration, social status, inside jokes, and sometimes meanings that have little connection to the picture displayed on the screen.

For parents and caregivers, this can sometimes feel like trying to interpret another language. However, we believe it is important not to approach emoji use as though youth and teens have created a secret digital code specifically designed to keep adults out. Humans have always adapted language to fit the communication tools available to them, emojis are simply another evolution of that process.

In fact, emojis can sometimes function much like facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, or punctuation do during face to face conversations. When we communicate through text, many of the social signals we normally rely upon disappear. We cannot necessarily hear sarcasm in someone’s voice, see a smile, notice a raised eyebrow, or recognize playful exaggeration. Emojis can help put some of those signals back into the conversation. The challenge is that, just like facial expressions and gestures, their meaning is not always obvious.

When a Skull Doesn’t Mean Death 💀

One of the best examples of how emoji meanings can evolve is the skull emoji 💀. To many adults, a skull naturally represents death, danger, poison, or perhaps Halloween. However, among many younger users, 💀 is commonly used to mean something that is extremely funny. It comes from expressions such as “I’m dead” or “I’m dying laughing.” So, if a teen sends their friend, “You actually said that to the teacher 💀💀💀” they are probably not communicating anything about death, they are likely saying, “That was so funny I can’t handle it.” This use is well established enough that Emojipedia identifies the skull as an emoji frequently used to express laughter, particularly among younger users (2).

The loudly crying face 😭 offers another good example, its official appearance suggests intense sadness. However, it can communicate sadness, laughter, affection, excitement, embarrassment, disbelief, frustration, or simply being emotionally overwhelmed. Emojipedia describes it as capable of expressing emotions ranging from grief and disappointment to hilarity and joy. Consider the difference between, “My dog died today 😭” and, “Dad tried to use teen slang at dinner 😭😭😭” Same emoji, completely different emotional message and this is why context matters.

Most emojis do not have the grammatical structure, vocabulary, or consistency we associate with a complete language. Instead, we see them as a form of visual digital communication that can supplement, modify, amplify, or sometimes replace words. 

• A teen might respond with, “💀” rather than writing, “That was unbelievably funny.” 

• They might send, “👀” to communicate something closer to, “I’m watching this, “This is interesting“, Did everyone else just see that?”, or “Something is going on here.”

• 🔥 might mean something is excellent, impressive, fashionable, attractive, or exciting.

• 🤡 can suggest someone is acting foolishly, or it can be self-directed humour acknowledging, “I made myself look ridiculous.”

• 💅 can convey confidence, attitude, sass, indifference, or a playful version of “I said what I said.”

• 🧢 can sometimes represent “cap,” slang for a lie or something untrue, while “no cap” means someone is being truthful or serious. Emojipedia specifically identifies this repurposing of 🧢 as an example of emoji meaning developing from existing slang.

None of these interpretations should automatically be treated as universal. Every few months, a graphic seems to circulate online warning parents that seemingly innocent emojis have secret and sometimes disturbing meanings. Suddenly parents are being told that hearts, fruit, animals, hand gestures, colours, and ordinary objects are evidence of sex, drugs, gangs, extremist ideology, bullying, or some other dangerous activity.

There is some truth behind some of these warnings. Emojis can be used as coded or euphemistic communication. Sexual meanings associated with 🍆 and 🍑, for example, have been widely documented for years. Drug sellers have also used emojis and combinations of emojis when advertising or discussing illicit substances online. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has previously published reference material documenting emoji combinations observed in drug-related communications (3).

However, this does not mean that seeing one of these emojis on a child’s device proves anything. 

• A 🍑 may represent someone’s backside, but it can also represent a peach.

• A 🍄 could appear in a conversation involving psychedelic drugs, but it could also appear because someone is playing a video game, talking about cooking, discussing nature, or sending a cute picture of a mushroom.

• A 💊 could relate to drugs, but it could also be sent by a teenager reminding a friend to take prescribed medication.

This is where some online “emoji decoder” graphics become problematic. They can remove context and encourage adults to treat a symbol as evidence rather than as one possible clue, and it is because of this fact that an emoji should rarely be interpreted in isolation.

Yes, Some Emojis Can Have Sexual Meanings

Parents and caregivers should understand that emojis can be used for sexual innuendo and flirtation. Some of the better known examples include:

• 🍆 often being used as a reference to male genitalia.

• 🍑 commonly representing someone’s buttocks.

• 💦 can sometimes have sexual connotations involving bodily fluids, although it can also simply communicate water, sweat, effort, or excitement.

• 👅 may be flirtatious or sexual in some conversations.

• 🔥 can communicate physical attractiveness.

• 😈 can suggest flirtation, mischievousness, or sexual intent depending upon the conversation.

In the past we have written articles on how “some” emoji’s can often have universal meaning that parents, caregivers, and educators should be alive too (4). Emojipedia has documented several sexualized reinterpretations of otherwise ordinary emojis, particularly within social media culture. However, once again, context is everything. If your teen comments “🔥🔥🔥” underneath a friend’s new skateboard trick, interpreting that as sexual communication would obviously be a mistake. This is precisely why parents should resist searching individual emojis online and assuming the first definition they find explains what their child meant.

Hearts Are More Complicated Than They Look ❤️💙💜🖤

Even something as seemingly straightforward as a heart can become complicated.

• ❤️ can communicate romantic love, family love, friendship, appreciation, support, or enthusiasm.

• 💜 might mean affection, but it can also have specific meanings within fandom communities. For example, Emojipedia notes the purple heart’s particular association with BTS fandom, where it developed a meaning connected to love and loyalty.

• 🖤 can communicate affection, dark humour, grief, aesthetic preference, solidarity, or simply someone’s favourite colour.

Different coloured hearts can acquire meanings within particular friendships, fandoms, online communities, or relationships. Those meanings can also change. This provides an important lesson for adults, “Sometimes an emoji’s meaning belongs to a community rather than a generation.”  A group of five friends may develop their own meaning for an emoji that nobody outside that group would understand. That is not particularly different from the inside jokes, nicknames, hand signals, expressions, and coded references that friendship groups have always created, technology simply gives them more symbols to work with.

Sometimes the Emoji Changes the Entire Sentence

One of the most interesting aspects of emojis is their ability to change the emotional meaning of otherwise identical words. Consider:

“Okay.”

“Okay 😂”

“Okay 😭”

“Okay 🙄”

“Okay 💀”

“Okay ❤️”

“Okay 🙂”

The word has not changed, however, the perceived tone certainly has. Depending on the conversation, these could communicate amusement, exasperation, affection, sarcasm, disbelief, resignation, or annoyance. This is one reason we think parents and educators should look at emojis as part of digital body language.

In face to face communication, humans constantly interpret non-verbal signals. Online, emojis, reaction buttons, punctuation, GIFs, memes, capitalization, response speed, message length, and even whether someone leaves another person “on read” can become part of that social signalling system. For youth and teens who conduct significant portions of their friendships through digital communication, these small signals can carry considerable social meaning.

Sometimes an Emoji Is Meant to Be Ironic

This is where things can become especially confusing for adults. Youth internet culture frequently uses exaggeration and irony.

• A crying emoji may mean something is funny.

• A skull can mean laughter.

• A clown can be self-deprecating.

• A smiling face can occasionally communicate irritation rather than happiness.

Someone might deliberately use an emoji “incorrectly” because using it incorrectly is the joke. This phenomenon is not unique to emojis. Language has always done this.

• “That’s sick” can mean something is excellent.

• “Bad” has historically been used to mean good.

• “I’m dying” usually does not mean someone requires medical assistance.

Online communication simply accelerates the speed at which these alternative meanings develop and spread.

Emoji Meanings Can Change Very Quickly

There is another reason why we are reluctant to publish definitive lists titled “What Every Teen Emoji Means.” By the time the list circulates widely among adults, youth may already be using the symbols differently because internet culture moves incredibly quickly. An emoji can acquire a new meaning through a viral TikTok, meme, musician, gaming community, streamer, fandom, television program, or inside joke. That meaning can spread across millions of users, evolve again, and sometimes disappear almost as quickly as it appeared.

There are also generational differences. Emojis that adults use sincerely may be interpreted differently by younger users. The meaning is not necessarily hostile or negative, it may simply reflect different communication styles. This is the same process we see with slang and mentioned in our previous article (1). Adults eventually learn the vocabulary, at which point youth often invent something new.

Sometimes the meaning does not come from one emoji but from several used together. Think about written language, the words “Yeah, right” can mean agreement or disbelief depending upon tone and context. Emoji combinations work similarly.

• 👀🍿 might communicate something like, “I’m watching this drama unfold.”

• 🚩🚩🚩 can suggest warning signs in someone’s behaviour or relationship.

• 🔥🔥🔥 can intensify praise.

• 💀😭 can communicate overwhelming laughter.

A string of hearts might indicate affection, support, friendship, fandom, or romance. Certain combinations can also have sexual, drug-related, or other adult meanings. However, combinations make universal decoding even more difficult because users can creatively assemble emojis to communicate ideas that may only make sense within that particular conversation. Rather than thinking of emojis as individual vocabulary words, it can sometimes be more useful to think of them as contextual visual cues.

When Should Parents Actually Be Concerned?

We believe this is the more useful question. An unfamiliar emoji by itself is rarely a reason for panic. Instead, look at the broader behavioural and conversational context.

• Has your child suddenly begun communicating privately with unknown adults?

• Is someone pressuring them to move conversations onto another platform?

• Is someone asking for intimate images?

• Are there threats, coercion, blackmail, or demands for money?

• Is someone offering drugs or asking them to purchase something?

• Is your child suddenly fearful about receiving messages?

• Are they being pressured to keep an online relationship secret?

• Is someone repeatedly requesting personal information, location information, gift cards, cryptocurrency, money, or images?

• Has there been a significant unexplained change in your child’s behaviour surrounding their device?

Those patterns tell us far more than whether a particular 🍄, 💀, 💜, or 👀 appeared in a message. When we focus too heavily on decoding individual symbols, we risk missing the behaviour occurring around them.

If you see an emoji you do not understand, one of the most powerful digital literacy tools available to parents costs nothing, ask your child, “I’ve seen you use 💀 with your friends. What does that mean when you guys use it?” You might be surprised at how willing youth and teens are to explain their online culture when the question comes from genuine curiosity rather than suspicion. In fact, allowing your child to become the expert can create an excellent opportunity for connection.

• Ask them which emojis adults use incorrectly.

• Ask which emojis they think make someone look old.

• Ask them what 😭 means in their friend group.

• Ask them whether 👍 feels friendly, neutral, sarcastic, or dismissive.

• Ask whether different friend groups use the same emojis differently.

You may learn considerably more from a ten minute conversation with your teen than from a twenty-page “secret teen emoji dictionary” found online. More importantly, your child learns something too which is, ‘My parent is interested in understanding my digital world, not simply policing it.”

Emojis Can Also Be a Digital Literacy Lesson

Emoji use creates a surprisingly good opportunity to teach critical thinking. Ask a young person:

• “How do you know what that emoji means?”

• “Could someone else interpret it differently?”

• “Would your grandmother understand that message the same way your friends do?”

• “Could that emoji cause a misunderstanding?”

• “Would you use the same emoji with your teacher that you use with your best friend?”

Those questions move the conversation beyond emoji definitions and into something far more important, that being audience awareness, context, communication, empathy, and digital literacy. These are skills youth will need throughout their lives. The emoji itself will probably change, however, the critical thinking skill will not.

At The White Hatter, we often remind parents and caregivers that understanding youth digital culture does not mean memorizing every app, acronym, meme, slang term, or emoji their child might encounter. Instead, our goal should be understanding enough about the environment that we can ask better questions, recognize meaningful changes in behaviour, identify genuine risk, and keep communication open.

Yes, some emojis have meanings adults may not immediately recognize, yes, some can be sexual, and yes, some have been used in conversations involving drugs, bullying, harassment, relationships, and other concerning behaviour. However, the overwhelming majority of emoji use among youth and teens is simply communication of humour, friendship, emotion, creativity, sarcasm, identity, belonging, and social connection. The presence of an emoji is not aways evidence of harmful behaviour. Context + conversation + behaviour are far more informative than the symbol itself.

From Hieroglyphics to Emojis

Sometimes adults talk about emoji culture as though young people have invented an entirely unprecedented way of communicating. They really haven’t, humans have always communicated visually. Ancient Egyptian communication were really nothing more that emoji type symbols.

We have used drawings, symbols, pictographs, gestures, facial expressions, signs, flags, icons, and shorthand for thousands of years. Even modern written communication is filled with symbols whose meanings we rarely stop to think about.

• ❤️ did not invent the idea of using a heart to represent love.

• 🔥 did not invent the idea of associating fire with intensity.

Emojis simply brought visual expression into digital conversation and gave billions of people a common library of symbols that could then be adapted, repurposed, remixed, and given new meanings. Youth and teens are particularly good at doing exactly that.

This is why our message to parents and caregivers remains the same whether we are discussing slang, emojis, social media, gaming, smartphones, artificial intelligence, or whatever technology comes next. Don’t become so focused on decoding the technology that you forget about the human being using it. You do not need to know the meaning of every emoji your child sends, you need a relationship where you can ask, and you do not need to secretly translate every conversation.

You need your child to know they can bring a confusing, uncomfortable, embarrassing, or frightening conversation to you without immediately losing access to their technology or being blamed for what happened. You do not need to become fluent in teen emoji culture, you need enough digital literacy to recognize that communication online is contextual, constantly changing, and often far more nuanced than a viral “parents beware” infographic might suggest.

The underlying human needs remain remarkably consistent. Youth still want friendship, belonging, humour, identity, affection, independence, recognition, and connection. What changes are the tools and symbols they use to communicate those needs. Prior to texting, it might have been a handwritten note folded into a square and passed across a classroom. Today it might simply be, “😭💀” Different medium, but the same human element.

Here at The White Hatter, that’s why we continue to advocate for Facts Not Fear and Enlighten Not Frighten. Rather than trying to memorize every supposed secret meaning behind every emoji, become curious about how your child communicates online, because the most important question isn’t, “What does that emoji mean?” Sometimes the better question is, “What does that emoji mean to you?”

So, with some grace from the youth and teens who may read this article, we now want to summarize what we have just written using a little of today’s emoji language. 😬🙏 combined with the online language of today’s youth and teens that we spoke to in the previous article (1).

“Okay unc 👴, lock in 🔒. No cap 🧢, this article is NOT about parents suddenly dropping 💀😭🔥 into every family group chat because they think they have finally cracked the secret emoji code. Please don’t. That is not 🔥. That is 🤡 behaviour, and your kid will probably be sitting across the dinner table like 😐 while texting their friends about you. 💀

Lowkey, the whole point is that you don’t need a PhD 🎓 in emojis to understand what your kid is communicating online 📱. You just need enough context 👀 to recognize whether something might actually be 🚩🚩🚩 or whether everyone is simply joking 😂, laughing 😭💀, showing some ❤️, celebrating something 🔥, or watching the latest friend-group drama unfold 👀🍿. Sometimes 🍑 is literally a peach. Sometimes it definitely isn’t. Sometimes 💦 means someone just finished a brutal workout. Sometimes…yeah…context matters. 😳 IYKYK.

So before you 🚨 because you saw an emoji on your kid’s phone, Googled ‘SECRET TEEN EMOJI MEANINGS,’ and the first website convinced you that 🍄💊🍑🍆💦😈 means civilization is officially over 💀, maybe don’t assume the internet has correctly decoded your child’s conversation.

Digital Food For Thought

The White Hatter

Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech

References:

1/ https://www.thewhitehatter.ca/post/beyond-rizz-and-brainrot-what-teen-slang-can-teach-adults-about-youth-digital-culture 

2/ https://emojipedia.org/laughter

3/ https://www.thewhitehatter.ca/post/how-some-teens-are-using-technology-to-purchase-or-sell-drugs-online 

4/ https://www.thewhitehatter.ca/post/emojis-slang-and-aggro-speak-decoding-the-digital-language-of-today-s-youth-and-teens-in-2026