Thumbs Up Emoji Download __EXCLUSIVE__
Anja Schofield
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The thumbs-up emoji proved pivotal in a case involving farmer Chris Achter of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and a 2021 deal to sell 87 metric tons of flax to grain buyer Kent Mickleborough. Mickleborough signed the contract for the deal and texted a picture of it to Achter and wrote "Please confirm flax contract," according to court documents. Achter responded to with a thumbs-up emoji.
Judge T.J. Keene of the Court of King's Bench in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, agreed and ruled on June 8 the thumbs-up emoji Achter sent served as an agreement to the contract. Keene ordered Achter to pay Mickleborough $82,200 in Canadian dollars, or $61,000 in U.S. currency.
Mickleborough considered the thumbs-up response to be an agreement between him and Achter because he included the "Please confirm flax contract" text along with the photo of the contract, according to court documents.
Additionally, Achter's counsel argued that allowing for the thumbs-up emoji to qualify as "identity and acceptance would open up the flood gates to allow all sorts of cases coming forward asking for interpretations as to what various different emojis mean."
"Sending a thumbs-up can be seen as passive aggressive and even confrontational, according to Gen Z who claim they feel attacked whenever it is used," reads the article, speaking for a generation by way of a 10-month-old Reddit thread and an alleged Perspectus Global poll in which young 'uns cite the 10 emojis that make people seem ancient. The thumbs-up tops that list, which also includes the lipstick kissy face, the pile of poop and the red heart. Guilty, guilty and very guilty. ? ? ?
But the Daily Mail article suggests I may be coming across to Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) as hostile. Like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, that favorite of Gen X and millennials, I couldn't help but wonder... Am I insulting my younger colleagues with my reliance on the trusty thumbs-up?
But I do really care and I am interested. So I asked my co-workers to give it to me straight. Are headlines about an emoji as the latest salvo in the never-ending culture wars exaggerated? Or is an upturned digital thumb truly tantamount to a middle finger? The answer rests somewhere in between. ? ?
"I use it all the time for a quick 'yes I'm on it' and such for work," says science writer Monisha Ravisetti, who's on the cusp of Gen Z leaning into Gen Y. Monisha and I regularly exchange five or six thumbs-up emoji daily, so far with few hurt feelings. She likes the efficiency of a thumbs-up at work, but adds that she doesn't use it in nonprofessional settings.
My Gen Z colleague Meara Isenberg agrees that "thumbing up" a message is always a safe bet. She does occasionally tack a thumbs-up emoji onto the end of texts: "Sounds good" "Perfect." But she sees how the emoji standing alone, in place of a reply, could seem colder.
I get it. There are times a thumbs-up emoji and nothing else might seem abrupt. If a friend shared that they'd gone on a great date, for example, a lone thumbs-up could read like a conversation killer channeling that I don't care to know more.
"When I think about it," David continues, "the associations I place on a thumbs-up are a bit nonsensical -- like, an iOS thumbs-up reaction through iMessage is less offensive somehow, but a full emoji feels like going through the effort of sending a telegram containing a single word. I've lived too long on the internet."
"Saying 'k' is definitely ruder than a thumbs-up emoji," my colleague Corinne Reichert suggested. This elicited widespread agreement, with one co-worker calling the terse "k" a "targeted missile strike." The ol' "KK," the team agrees, is a far superior choice. ? ? ?
"Young people do not give a shit about a thumbs-up emoji," one Gen Z'er tweeted this week. "Idk why media people think that's at the front of our minds but we just want healthcare and to be able to make decisions about our own bodies."
Still, the subtleties of day-to-day communication impact the way we experience our friends and co-workers, and ultimately how we perceive ourselves. The vagaries of language and iconography reflect important cultural conversations. I'm just not convinced the thumbs-up is one of them.
So even though I'd rather not be known around the office as a boorish elder (at home is a different story), so be it if my thumbs-up-emoji-ing makes me "old." ? My informal research shows it's not causing undue emotional distress, and generational communication differences can be illuminating, instructional, even charming. Plus, isn't aging challenging enough without having to worry that every time I click on an emoji, I'll be viewed as a surly senior shouting "get off my lawn"? ? ? ?
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, one should always seek to have contracts reduced to a written document signed by both parties if at all possible, rather than planning to rely on text messages or emojis to prove the existence of a contract. Here, although SWT was able to successfully prove a contract, it came with significant litigation costs and time, which might have been avoided had there been a more traditional written and signed contract.
But Achter Land & Cattle Ltd did not deliver on the given date, by which time the price of flax had increased significantly. The company said the thumbs-up emoji only indicated that Achter had received the message, not that he had agreed to the contract, Achter said in an affidavit.
But in the ruling, Justice Timothy Keene decided that while the thumbs-up emoji was "a non-traditional means to 'sign' a document but nevertheless under these circumstances this was a valid way to convey the two purposes of a 'signature.'"
The court, in its ruling, held that the thumbs-up emoji as a valid indication of agreement to the contract's terms within the specific context of this case. The judge acknowledged that this method may not conform to traditional practices but emphasised the importance of recognising and considering the influence of the evolving technological landscape.
The answer as to whether a thumbs-up emoji can be considered both a valid signature and an indication that the signatory is aware and has consented to be bound to the contract can potentially be found by determining whether a valid electronic signature has been affixed and whether, by the doctrine of quasi-mutual assent, the signor intended to be bound by their signature.
Applying these criteria, it stands to reason that a thumbs-up emoji falls short of meeting the requirements for an advanced electronic signature as it fails to uniquely identify the user or establish a direct link to their identity. Moreover, it does not meet the criteria of being created through means that can be maintained solely under the user's control, and the use of this method lacks the capability to detect any subsequent changes to the related data or data message. Additionally, an advanced electronic signature should be based on face-to-face identification of the user, which is not fulfilled by a simple thumbs-up emoji.
In the Canadian case, the court referred to the fact that SWT and Achter Land had concluded several contracts via the WhatsApp platform in their previous engagements and that this was standard practice in the industry; that the contract which identified the parties and was signed by SWT in wet ink was drafted after phone conversation between the parties, captured via pictures and transmitted to Achter; the conventional definition and use of the emoji, that is, to display acceptance and or approval; and the fact that SWT had requested confirmation from Achter to confirm acceptance of the contract. In these circumstances, the court found that the use the emoji sufficed as a valid signature.
The validity of using an emoji as a signature hinges on whether the emoji use is capable of identifying the person and demonstrates their intention to be bound to the communicated information and, if this method is deemed adequately reliable for the intended purposes, considering all relevant circumstances. It stands to reason that, in the right circumstances, just as in the Canadian case, an emoji may constitute a valid signature in South Africa.
This open source emoji is named "thumbs up" and is licensed under the open source Apache 2.0 license. It's a colored emoji. It's also a defined emoji, which means it's part of the open standard on emojis. It's available to be downloaded in SVG and PNG formats (available in 256, 512, 1024 and 2048 PNG sizes).
It's part of the emoji set "Noto Emoji by Google", which has 3,670 emojis in it.
If you need this emoji available in another format, it should be pretty straight forward to download it as an SVG image file, and then import it into apps like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe XD, Canva or Sketch. Converting it to an ICO, JPEG or WebP image format or file type should also be pretty simple (we hope to add that feature to Iconduck soon).