What Does The Skull Emoji Mean And Why Gen Z's Are Replying To A Joke With A 💀? The Skull Emoji 💀 Explained

The way people communicate has undergone a major transformation in the last two decades due to technological advances. With more than 3,000 emojis available on your phone or computer, you've most likely seen an emoji used in contexts completely different from what the symbol might've stood for.

A good example is the skull emoji, 💀. For some people it symbolizes death, but for teenagers, especially Gen Z. the skull emoji 💀, means dying of laughter.

Where Does ‘Skull Emoji 💀’ Come From?

The skull emoji 💀 was added in 2010 to Unicode 6.0, a text encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text written in all of the world's major writing systems and Emoji 1.0 in 2015.

How Gen Z Uses The 'Skull Emoji 💀'?

Halloween is not the only appropriate time to use the skull emoji. Back in 2015, when the emoji became available for mobile phones, millennials used 💀 it in a lighthearted way to describe a feeling of exhaustion, for example, "Just got back from the gym 💀."

As for Gen Z's, the skull emoji took a turn in the early 2020s, when they started to use the emoji as a symbol for laughter. In many cases, the 💀 is used as a reaction to convey the metaphor "dying of laughter." Some examples below:

- "Did you watch last night’s Succession? 💀💀💀"
- "She deleted her account! 💀💀💀"

‘Skull Emoji 💀’ Usage In Memes

The skull emoji saw consistent use in the I forgor meme, as it was inspired by a tweet that used the emoji. For example, on February 5th, 2021, Twitter user @ItsNotSeabass tagged Walmart's Twitter account, writing, "Hey @Walmart I have a question." After the @walmarthelp Twitter account replied, "How can we be of assistance?" @ItsNotSeabass responded, "I forgor 💀," likely mistyping "I forgot" due to R and T being next to each other on a standard QWERTY keyboard. The tweet (shown below) received over 750 retweets and 2,200 likes in five months.

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For the full history of the skull emoji 💀, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.