Vodafone’s Emoji Decoder

While emojis have become a colourful staple of office messages, a single 🔥 or 😂 can be read very differently depending on who’s on the other end of the chat. To help shed some light on these mixed signals, we commissioned fresh research into how common office icons are interpreted across ages, genders and regions. The result: Vodafone’s Emoji Decoder—your go-to guide for understanding how emojis might land with different teammates.

Different ages, genders, relationship statuses and postcodes all colour the way people read a single symbol. No wonder the melting-face emoji can sometimes melt the conversation.

45% of full-time and part-time Australian workers frequently use emojis to communicate.
65% admit they often worry those emojis are not interpreted in the way they intended.

Take the guesswork out of workplace icons

Enter our Emoji Decoder—a digital dictionary built to bridge the generational and geographic gap in icon understanding. Drawing on nationwide data, it spotlights the emojis most likely to be misunderstood and explains what they really signal, whoever’s on the other side of the chat.

“Australians who use emojis are showing their communicative flair, using emojis to express themselves across diverse digital platforms. Emojis can easily be misinterpreted, with each emoji having multiple possible meanings, and each generation bringing new layers of meaning to how they use them,” says Dr Lauren Gawne, leading linguist and Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University—and now Vodafone’s very own Emoji-ologist.

“The Vodafone Emoji Decoder offers valuable insight into how Australians from different generations and backgrounds use emojis to communicate feelings at work, helping bridge the gap in emoji understanding.”

The research numbers reveal the full story

From the skull 💀 that Gen Z fires off for ‘funny or exhausted’ to the thumbs-up 👍 that some Millennials read as sarcastic, the Decoder spells out the nuances of emoji-speak.

“These findings show that while emojis are widely used in Australian workplaces, their meanings aren’t always universal. The same emoji can signal enthusiasm, sarcasm or stress, depending on who’s sending it and who’s receiving it,” added Gawne.

“Tools like Vodafone’s Emoji Decoder provide us with very useful insights to navigate the evolving meaning of emoji, fostering clearer communication in the workplace and helping people use emojis with more confidence.”