Is π an "Old People" Emoji? Laughing Emoji by Generation (π π π€£ lol)
Why the tears-of-joy emoji picked up an old-people reputation, why Gen Z laughs with skull and sobbing emoji, and how lol, kk and Japan's w and θ fit in.
If you sent π after a friend shared a funny video and got back "who even uses that anymore," this article can explain why.
Laughing emoji are used quite differently depending on the generation. Rather than one side being right and the other wrong, knowing that the same emoji reads at a different temperature to each generation makes messaging a lot easier.
The rise and fall of π
π (face with tears of joy) came into Unicode in 2010 and spread fast along with the spread of smartphones. Thanks to its intuitive expression of laughing so hard you cry, it was used across languages and countries.
In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries chose this emoji as its Word of the Year, so much did it stand for the laughter of an era. For a long time, it sat at the top of the ranking of the most used emoji in the world.
The problem was that it got used too much. Stuck onto anything by anyone, anywhere, even on lines that weren't very funny, it gradually started to feel to younger people like a "halfhearted laugh" or "an emoji your parents' generation uses."
Gen Z laughs with π and π
What teens and people in their twenties often use today to express laughter are π (skull) and π (loudly crying face). They can be baffling at first, since they're emoji that look far from laughter.
π is "I'm dying," or in English "I'm dead," translated straight into a picture. It's not about real death, but an exaggeration that you laughed so hard you collapsed.
π originally means sadness, but it's also used to mean you're laughing until you cry, or to express an overload of feeling like "this is too cute to handle." Its emotional range is bigger and more exaggerated than π, so younger people prefer it.
π€£ (rolling on the floor laughing) sits somewhere in between. It's less stale than π, but it doesn't feel as "current" as π.
Text laughs: lol, haha and how they work with emoji
In English chats, laughter often starts with words, not emoji. A flat "lol." can read as dry or even sarcastic, a plain "lol" or "haha" is a light reaction, and "hahahaha" or "LOL!!!" reads as really funny. (Koreans handle this with a repeated consonant, romanized as "kk," and the number of letters adjusts the size of the laugh in the same delicate way.)
That's why emoji more often get added on top of the laugh word than replace it. Writing "lolπ" or "lmaoπ" raises the intensity of the laugh one more notch.
"Hehe" and "haha" are taken as softer and more polite laughs than "lol," so in conversations with someone senior or in work messages, "haha" with π or π is the safe level.
Japan's "ossan-style" (γγγγζ§ζ)
In Japan, there's a term "γγγγζ§ζ" (ojisan kobun, "middle-aged guy style"). It's a name for the traits you often see in messages that middle-aged men send to younger people.
The typical traits are said to be tacking several emoji onto every sentence, often using sweating emoji like π and π¦, and ending each sentence with a smiling face like π.
Younger people, on the other hand, often use few emoji, or express laughter with letters like "w" or "θ" (kusa, literally "grass"). They play a role similar to "lol" in English chats.
A checklist by generation
If you're curious how your laughing emoji habits read, take a look below.
- You stick π on almost every funny message β It feels natural to people 30 and over, but may look a little old-fashioned to teens and people in their twenties.
- You express laughter with π or π β It's natural among your peers, but older generations may misread it as really sad or ominous.
- You send only an emoji with no "lol" or "haha" β In a chat where people usually add a laugh word, it can read a bit dry.
- You put three or four laughing emoji on one sentence β It can look excessive whatever the generation.
- You use π (slightly smiling face) in place of laughter β To younger people it can read as a "forced smile" or sarcasm, so be careful.
Conclusion: match the other person
There's no right answer for laughing emoji. The idea that π is an "old people emoji" is just another trend, and plenty of people still use π without a second thought.
What matters is the person receiving it. Matching them, with π if they laugh with π and "lol" if they laugh with "lol," makes the conversation much more natural.
- πStill the most widely understood laugh
- πGen Z's "I'm dying laughing"
- πLaughing until you cry
- π€£A little less stale than π
Last checked 2026-10-19