The Thumbs-Up of Doom 👍: Why Your University Needs an Emoji Strategy
- Gerben van Niekerk
- Oct 7, 2025
- 4 min read
Just the gist:
A university’s use of emojis 👍 is a double-edged sword. While they boost student engagement, they can also undermine perceived competence. A new danger now comes from AI-generated emojis. The human brain detects these synthetic emotions as inauthentic, creating a cognitive conflict that could destroy trust. Therefore, institutions must implement strict guidelines prohibiting emojis in formal contexts, enforce mandatory human review of all AI content, and practise moderation in all other communications.
We’ve all learned to spot them in the wild: the painfully generic “I am delighted to share that…” posts on LinkedIn, the corporate emails that overuse words like “enhance,” “delve,” or “crucial.” But there’s a new, more colourful sign that a robot is at the helm: a bizarre overuse of emojis.
So, to enhance our understanding, let’s delve into this crucial concept: the emoji in a university setting. We’ll look at research, common sense, and the questionable wisdom of an AI that thinks an academic probation notice needs a little extra sparkle. ✨
The Emoji Invasion: A Numbers Game 📊
Before we get to the AI problem, let’s appreciate its scale. The emoji takeover is real, and it’s bigger than you think.
👉 By 2025, the official emoji library grew to nearly 4,000 approved characters.
👉 A whopping 92% of people online use them. More surprisingly, about 71-77% of us admit to using them at work.
👉 The real kicker (apologies, the real 🦵): Over 10 billion emojis are sent across the globe. Every. Single. Day.
This brings us to the million-dollar (or euro) question for university communicators: How do you adopt the internet’s favourite language to seem relatable without sacrificing your hard-won “seriousness”?
And now, with AI drafting our content, who’s truly steering the emotional tone, a seasoned professional, or a robot that just learned what “lit” means? 🔥
The Good News: Emojis are Like Digital Hugs 🤗
Emojis are brilliant relational tools. They solve the biggest problem of digital text: the complete absence of nonverbal cues. Neurocognitive research even shows our brains process a digital smiley 🙂 in a similar way to a real human smile, creating instant warmth.
But this comes with a critical trade-off: Liking vs. Competence. Using emojis can make a university seem more personable and caring (high liking), but it can also make it seem less authoritative and expert (low competence). Their power is also context-dependent. They feel authentic in one-to-one chats but can come across as try-hard corporate marketing in mass broadcasts.
The Bad News: Don’t Send a Clown Emoji to a Crisis 🤡
For every digital hug, there’s the risk of a deeply awkward digital handshake. To avoid this, universities need non-negotiable “Red Lines.” The core principle is simple: prohibit emojis in any communication where competence and seriousness are the main goals.
This means no emojis in:
Formal Administrative Contexts: Think overdue tuition notices, academic probation emails, or official policy updates. A thumbs-up doesn’t soften the blow of a late fee.
Serious or Tragic Topics: Campus safety alerts or messages about a community member’s passing are absolute no-go zones.
The New Danger: Rise of the Soulless Smiley 🤖
Just when we thought we had the rules figured out, a new villain entered the scene: AI-generated emotion. When you ask a Large Language Model to have a “personality,” it often defaults to a synthetic enthusiasm that our brains immediately flag as fake.
Neuroscientists call the brain’s reaction to an out-of-place emoji a “semantic violation”, it’s a mental record-scratch that signals something is deeply wrong. Imagine receiving an automated academic warning that ends with an upbeat 👍. That clash between a serious message and a synthetic cheerful emoji doesn’t build a connection; it creates what researchers call “dysfunctional distrust.” It shatters the very human bond it was trying to fake.
The Solution: Put a Human in the Cockpit 👩✈️
So, how do we fight the robot uprising of inauthentic cheerfulness? By remembering that AI is a powerful but unseasoned intern, not the author. Because interpreting emotion is a deeply human skill, we need a framework built on human judgment.
This means enforcing a mandatory human veto. All AI-generated content must be reviewed, edited, and approved by a person before it goes live.
Furthermore, AI-assisted drafting should be banned entirely for any “Red Line”communications. Your university’s digital handshake must remain genuinely human.
Your Action Plan: The 4 Golden Rules
Ready to build a better emoji strategy? Here’s what to do.
1. Write Down the Rules (Seriously) 📜 Don’t wing it. Create a formal policy that defines the role of emojis in your brand voice. Explain why you use them (to foster connection) and outline the risks.
2. Define Your “No-Emoji Zones” 🛑 Your policy must have hard-and-fast rules. Ban emojis from all formal administrative contexts (financial, disciplinary, academic warnings) and all serious or tragic topics (campus safety, crises). No exceptions.
3. Treat AI Like a Smart Intern (Not the CEO) 🤖 Put human judgment in absolute control.
AI is for first drafts, not final say.
Enforce mandatory human review. No AI content gets published without a human editor checking it for tone and authenticity.
Prohibit AI for all “Red Line” topics. The risk of synthetic emotion creating distrust is too high.
4. Practice Moderation: The “One-to-Three” Rule 👍 For general, low-stakes posts (like campus life or event reminders):
Stick to one to three emojis per post. It’s enough to add warmth without looking like digital confetti.
Give every emoji a purpose. It should convey a tone or add visual clarity, not just be decoration.
Remember the trade-off. If the goal is community (liking), an emoji works. If the goal is authority (competence), leave it out.
The Final Takeaway
So, what’s the golden rule? It’s simple: If you wouldn’t say it with a stone-cold straight face during a graduation ceremony 🎓, you probably shouldn’t say it with a winky face in an official email. 😉
Ultimately, your digital handshake has to remain human. Before you let your AI intern loose, give its work a final once-over. You’re looking for rogue smileys and suspiciously cheerful robots. After all, you want your university to be known for its world-class research 🔬, not for an AI that just discovered the alien emoji and won’t stop using it 👽.
