How To Change The Skin Tone Of Your Zoom Reactions

Nobody likes looking like Homer Simpson. At least, that’s how I feel whenever I fire off an emoji to a friend on my smartphone and forget to change the skin tone. If yellow’s your thing, that’s great; I think it looks a bit weird in a text message.

And while everyone knows the trick of getting the various skin-tone versions of emoji to appear on Android or iOS—long-press your finger on any applicable emoji to pull up all the different skin tones you can use—you might not know that other apps, like Zoom, allow you to pick a skin tone for reactions, too. This isn’t going to fundamentally change your Zoom experience, but it at least allows you to express yourself (via reactions) in a way that feels more like you.

If you’re on Windows or Mac, you’ll want to launch the Zoom app and click on your profile picture in the upper-right corner. From there, click on Settings, and you should see the option to set your reaction’s skin tone right on the “General” page. You can’t miss it:

As a quick reminder, reactions can be found in the lower-right corner of your Zoom window during a regular meeting. You get a mighty two options to pick from: clapping and a thumbs up. Your smartphone, this is not.

When you select a reaction, it’ll appear over the live video of your face for about five seconds, then it’ll go away. Nobody else in the meeting gets any kind of special notification about your reaction, as it’s meant to be a quick little “I like this” or “you’re doing great” that you can share while someone is presenting or talking. I wouldn’t mind it if Zoom added this emoji in a future update, too: ????