Hilarious Local News Segment on the Secret Code of Emojis Goes Viral
There's nothing more humiliating than being totally out of the loop when it comes to teen lingo. (Is there any greater indicator that you've finally become an old and are simply hurtling towards your mortal fate?)
Even worse, however, is the inability to authentically navigate the hip, cool and with it culture of youth without coming off like Steve "How do you do, fellow kids?" Buscemi on 30 Rock... which is exactly what happened to two well intentioned yet hopelessly oblivious Seattle newscasters this week.
A news segment from Seattle's Q13 FOX News station went viral online after a clip of two anchors trying to decipher the allegedly insidious meanings and "secret code" behind popular emojis was shared by one particularly sarcastic user on Twitter.
"Alright, who snitched?" the user asked, jokingly, in a post that has been retweeted more than 110,000 times since being shared on February 1.
In the clip, the two newscasters stretch to find the horrible, deviant hidden meanings behind emojis like the fox, the frog and the hibiscus flower, among others.
"If it's a fox, just a simple fox emoji, that could mean, 'Let's go sneak out of the house,'" he explained, adding that a combination of the skull emoji along with an arrow and a flame "could be saying to someone, 'I hope you die in a fire.'"
"As parents, we can look at these and have no idea, but this could obviously lead to cyber bullying," the broadcaster added earnestly, before deciphering a flower emoji as meaning a desire to "get some drugs."
As for the otherwise innocuous frog emoji: "[Could it mean] hop on over to my place?" one anchor asked, as the other man giggled.
"That's a good guess, it could be that," the broadcaster responded, before getting serious and explaining, "But to some kids, in their code, it could mean, you're ugly—I'm telling you you're ugly." (Editor's note: LOL)
Since going viral, users on Twitter have had a field day with the clip, many using the opportunity to create their own special meanings behind various emojis.
Below, see a handful of reactions to the news clip:
25 Celebrities Who Look Like Pokemon: