https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/re-the-thumbs-up-reaction/
Over on Brain Baking, Wouter Groeneveld offered a critique of the thumbs up reaction emoji, noting correctly that it is an at best ambiguous response to substantive messages. I largely agree with his general critique of emojis and emoji reactions: “Instead of adding context, by, you know, using words, like these, emojis manage to strip even more context, sometimes paradoxically by adding layers of confusion.” (I will however note that I have recognized the potential power of emojis to tell stories.) With that being said, I do think the thumbs up reaction has limited use. I have to use Microsoft Teams (thumbs down) for my day job. It tends not to be too chatty. In my case I receive assignments or answers to my questions about assignments. I sometimes use the thumbs up reaction as short-hand for acknowledged, understood, or will do. I even drop the occasional thumbs up in real life. I can endorse thumbs up (or similar, maybe the checkmark) for limited use cases to avoid unnecessarily cluttering a chat. (I submit for the record, however, that there is no use for lol or rofl.)
#emojis