Slack’s new Emoji Reactions are my favorite thing on the internet, at least for today.
I have long pined for something more than a mere “like.” When someone shares that there has been a loss in the family, an illness has befallen them, or simply wants feedback on a life decision, sometimes “like” just doesn’t get the job done. At least not with specificity or personality.
Slack, pretty much the best thing that has ever happened to TechCrunch comms, is today releasing an update that understands the very real struggle.
Prepare yourselves for Emoji Reactions.
The Slack team explained in a blog post today that many users were asking for the ability to “like” comments. Taking this a step further, Slack realized that sometimes a “like” isn’t appropriate, and experimented with a number of potential response buttons.
From the blog post:
We argued about what symbol we would use — a heart, a star, a thumbs-up, a check-mark. But then we realized that all these were already in the default emoji set… along with the dancers, the sparkles, the monkeys, the smiling, crying, grimacing faces, and the poop.
Emoji reactions were born.
This is the origin story of a feature that I personally hope will pervade the entire internet landscape.
With the update, users will be able to add Emoji buttons to their own Slack messages, which other users can then click on to express… Well, anything. You could throw in a thumbs up for the simple “like” reaction, or a “+” to add people to a list, or use two (or more) separate emojis to take a vote. The possibilities are truly endless.
Reactions can be added to basic messages, as well as files, with a special new Recent Mentions tab so that you can see all your reactions in a single place.
Slack has also added a new Emoji picker so that finding the perfect Emoji doesn’t take more time than it’s worth. Categories have been simplified and are now scrollable, and the team also added in better search so that users can type in what they’re looking for.
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