The younger generation interprets the popular emoji as a sign of aggression in the ... Far worse, the thumbs up is seen as actively hostile – a passive-aggressive dig deemed “unsettling”.

HuaAnNi replied: "For younger people (I'm 24 for reference) the thumbs up emoji is used to be really passive aggressive. It's super rude if someone just sends you a thumbs up.

Find out if the thumbs-up emoji is canceled. Are we really debating the use of emojis? Yes, we are, and here’s why. ... but I still feel like it’s such an unsettling response.

The thumbs-up emoji isn’t passive-aggressive ... As well as “unsettling”, the charges levelled at that poor, hardworking hand included “passive-aggressive”, ...

As reported by Indy100, the Reddit user confessed that they found the emoji ‘unsettling’ as a response and that they preferred to acknowledge posts by team members with a heart instead.

It appears nothing is immune to cancel culture, not even emojis. Now, Reddit users have targeted one of the most popular emojis, the thumbs-up symbol, as potentially “hostile.” ...

The AI bots are going nuts again. Microsoft Copilot — a rebranded version of Bing Chat — is getting stuck in some old ways by providing strange, uncanny, and sometimes downright unsettling ...

To Gen Z, that classic smiley face emoji isn’t all sunshine — it’s more of a smug, side-eye smirk that can come off as passive-aggressive in texts like above.

This gives it an unsettling quality, as if it’s in danger. ... “The saluting emoji is a great first attempt at building solidarity,” he said.