Why Emojis Belong in Emails (!!!)
It would be a better workplace for everyone if we could just be honest about what we know and don’t know
I saw a viral video on TikTok this week from @vivsmee captioned “updating my email style to match my male colleagues.” You can watch it here.
In the video, a young woman in the corporate world is revising a warm and collegial email she has written to a male colleague named Kevin. She self-consciously replaces her exclamation points with commas and deletes phrases indicating uncertainty such as “I think.” She is clearly uncomfortable with the resultingly dry email but hits “send” anyway. As a staunch supporter of exclamation points in work emails myself, I completely related to the video. My instinct in writing emails is always to be friendly, positive, and nice. I am also a young woman in the workplace and don’t see anything wrong with expressing my naturally bubbly personality through email. Sometimes I’ll even throw in a smiley face :)
Over and over again, I’ve been told to tone down these “feminine” instincts that make me look “weak.” If I really want to get ahead in my career, they say, it’s time to start acting like the men. So far, it’s worked. I channel the most hyper-confident and aggressive version of myself. I fake it until I make it. I was reminded that…
