New UNC emojis met with lukewarm student reaction

For UNC students, UNC-themed emojis were somewhat limited, with the blue heart and two little rams as the only options for fans to show their digital school spirit in text messages and social media — until now.

The Department of Athletics has developed eight UNC-themed emoji stickers available for download on iOS and Android devices. In order to use the emojis, users must download the images to the camera roll, after which they can insert them as images into text fields.

Lynnea Phillips, social media coordinator for the athletic department, said she came up with the idea for the stickers, and the department’s design intern, senior Keely McKenzie, spent an afternoon designing them. Phillips said about 20 minutes were spent designing each sticker.

“We’re really taking a cue from the professional sports teams,” Phillips said. “It’s becoming a trend. I think we’ll definitely see more not just schools but organizations making (the stickers). Right now it’s mainly football and baseball that have really embraced it besides colleges.”

Phillips said so far the University of Nebraska and Mississippi State University have released similar emoji stickers available for download.

“We wanted to jump on that trend and give back to our fans,” Phillips said. “We know the things we do on digital and social media are really important, and we wanted to do something new and interesting and cool.”

Freshman Morgan Holder was impressed by the new stickers, but she said she might not use them until they’re easier to access.

“Downloading them sounds like a lot of effort, but if they were more convenient, I’d definitely use them,” Holder said.

Phillips said the emojis are offered as downloadable images instead of a keyboard like the one traditional emojis are offered on to save money.

“We were able to make these on the cheap,” Phillips said.

Phillips said it would have been more expensive to offer the emojis through an application, but offering them as images on the athletic department website was a free option.

Senior Will Jarvis said he thought the stickers were a cool idea, but he probably wouldn’t use them.

“It’s probably too much time to actually go in the browser and download the emojis,” Jarvis said.

Phillips said another set of the emojis will be coming out soon after her office receives feedback on the first set.

“We’ve had people respond and ask why certain things weren’t included, and we took suggestions,” Phillips said. “We had a few ask about some of the more popular emoji faces, like sassy girl and the heart eyes. It was great to hear feedback and build off of that.”

Junior Nick Bui liked the stickers but said he also probably wouldn’t use them himself.

“I don’t use emojis very often, so it’s not for me,” Bui said. “But I could see some people using them.”

Phillips said she’s excited for the opportunities the stickers will offer UNC athletics.

“We think this is a cool way to increase our brand and give the fans a new way to share our new look and feel,” Phillips said.

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