Erin Allen: Good afternoon. I'm Erin Allen and this is The Rundown. 

We are firmly in the age of the emoji and all spaces whether it's texting a homie or emailing a co worker. If you're one of the people on the planet who has access to a digital device and you use it for communicating, you're probably emoji-cating as well. And as helpful as emojis can be, it turns out there's a bit of tension and disagreement between age groups on what they mean, and how they should be used, especially in a workplace. I spoke with Communication Strategist and writer for Axios, Eleanor Hawkins. She recently wrote a story on this and she says when it comes to relating, well, there's nothing really new under the sun.

Eleanor Hawkins: Everyone has always had their own communication style that's varied based on age, region or culture. But emojis are unique because of this new digital first environment that we're communicating in.

Erin Allen: Digital first environment. That's a lot of what I happen to be working in here at WBEZ. And usually, that looks like either email, Microsoft Teams or slack. And slack is where all the emojis really shine. I asked some of my colleagues Claire, Indi and Brenda about their favorites.

Claire Hyman: Definitely the little smiley face with a halo and the cowboy guy, because the cowboy hat guy just wants to have fun. 

Indira Khera: I like the clapping emoji. I like the dancing penguin emoji.

Brenda Ruiz: Oh, I use the fingers crossed emoji a lot.

Erin Allen: And taking it a step further. My colleague Joshua has one emoji that's become somewhat of a signature.

Joshua Miller: The smiley face with the glasses and then like the buck teeth, it's like the essence of who I am. You know, it's like nerdy, but fun and cute. You know?

Erin Allen: I know emojis, can be cute, but Eleanor reminds us that the year we were born can dictate just how cute or not we think emojis really are.

Eleanor Hawkins: The biggest thing that we found in our reporting is that Gen Z considers the thumbs up emoji to be passive aggressive or rude. And that's something that's raising eyebrows among older people in the workplace.

Erin Allen: I definitely heard this tension when I talked to some of my colleagues of different ages. Turns out there are several emojis that Gen Z's around here find passive aggressive that I - a millennial - use all the time with the best of intentions.

Joshua Miller: That one for me, it has to be like the ears and also the ear/eye combination. So if anyone like if you say something in chat, and someone's like the eyes looking sideways, and then the ears right next to it, I'm like, oh my goodness, like these are borderline fighting words or fighting emojis.

Erin Allen: Fighting emojis?

Indira Khera: I think the plain smiley face, not like the cute blushing one, but just the neutral smiley face is really passive aggressive. For some reason, whenever I look at it, it makes me feel like that emoji is forcing a smile or like smiling through some kind of frustration.

Erin Allen: Two more my colleagues also said the plain smiley face emoji is passive aggressive. And one of them, Brenda, says it also tells her a little something about the person who's using it.

Brenda Ruiz: I think that they are a little bit older. For reference, I'm 27. So they're probably around 40 Is what I'm thinking if they're using that passive aggressive smiley. I'm also under the impression that they maybe don't realize that the meanings of these emojis are changing a little bit over time.

Erin Allen: Hearing all this y'all got me a little stressed. Like I need to rethink how I use emojis. I thought they were clarifying my words, not misrepresenting my tone. Eleanor from Axios says I'm not alone in this.

Eleanor Hawkins: Yeah, you're right, the tone is often lost in text. And I think that's why a lot of people have resorted to emojis to show, you know, emotion and to show charisma and to kind of show the intent behind their words. And that's why this misinterpretation is so troubling to some. But one thing that we've we've also found in our reporting is that many companies are creating brand guidelines and communication guidelines within the workplace to say like, you know, instead of a thumbs up, maybe use a checkmark or here's how we communicate that we've seen something or how we acknowledge something in a digital space. A recent Loom study found that 91% of workers say that their messages have been misunderstood. And then one in five have been reprimanded, demoted or fired because of it. The other thing that's really interesting, and this might be why the businesses are paying more attention, is that miscommunication in the workplace can cost companies roughly $128 billion each year. So again, all this time worrying, over explaining, over punctuating, re-explaining, all the back and forth is really costing businesses money.

Erin Allen: My colleague Lisa has gotten around this confusion a little bit by only using emojis with the people she already knows or who understand her sense of humor. Otherwise, she says she avoids the face and smiley emojis, so she's not misconstrued.

Lisa Labuz: I just think there's too much flex room in there. And I just want it to be super light. So I love using the heart emoji, probably I use that most often. I tend toward using objects, plants, animals. Who doesn't love animals?

Erin Allen: So that's actually a nice way to get around being misunderstood or seen as passive aggressive, hopefully. But then there's this whole other conversation about race and skin tone, which, as usual, complicates things. I have some colleagues who get excited about using the skin tone emojis, including Alden.

Alden Loury: I can not resist sending a brown thumbs up, or clapped hands or raised hands, I just think it's the coolest thing is an acknowledgement that not everyone's hands are beige. So I love that.

Erin Allen: And Joshua.

Joshua Miller: Me being extra, I took the liberty to go ahead and like change all of my different skin tones to like different ones. So like my peace sign might be like super dark skin, while my thumbs up might be like a little fairer skin. But I just love having an array of different kinds of skin tones.

Erin Allen: But the skin tone update also created some division.

Eleanor Hawkins: Slack introduced it recently. And they found that the skin tone introduction has not been accepted by everyone. So white people really stick with that yellow emoji, which is super interesting. And so that's that's a trend that we're watching is how people are embracing these different skin tones. And when and where in their comfort, ability in doing that.

Erin Allen: Yeah, my colleague, Ascha has opinions about that yellow skin tone.

Ascha Lee: I know that some folks see the white skin tone emoji as an assertion of whiteness, or like, like the person is is proud of being white. And that's definitely not my intention. I choose not to use the yellow default emoji because I don't want to think of whiteness as the default. I don't want to hide behind the default yellow.

Erin Allen: And Brenda has some complicated opinions too.

Brenda Ruiz: I think it's super important to pick the right skin tone. So if you are very, very, very pale and your hand emojis are looking very, very dark, like that is a problem. Sometimes I will see yellow hand emojis for people who just don't pick it, which I think is fine. If you're like, that's kind of the normal, but then I feel like there it kind of lacks this kind of personality, almost because when you pick your skin tone for those emojis, it's almost like you're inserting yourself into that emoji. So it's almost like this is my hand giving you a thumbs up. But if it's just a yellow hand giving a thumbs up, it's like you're trying to keep that distance maybe - maybe I'm looking too much into it.

Erin Allen: I mean, it's hard not to. But Eleanor says regardless of your opinions as a general note, the more inclusivity in the emoji library, the better. And in her article she included some really good advice from a Gen X-er too. Scott Rosenberg said, quote, communication is hard in the workplace, assume good intent - that's a smart starting point - unless someone has already proven themselves to be a jerk. I like that. Big thanks to my colleagues who shared their thoughts on emojis today; Indi, Joshua, Lisa, Asha, Brenda and Clare. And thanks to Eleanor Hawkins over at Axios for the tea on emojis at work. And that's it for The Rundown today. I'm Erin Allen. See you bright and early tomorrow morning.

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