WhatsApp’s new status reaction feature is catching everyone out and it’s so embarrassing

WhatsApp has just introduced a new feature where you can react to someone’s status, and it’s causing everyone to send messages by mistake. How embarrassing.

It launched at the start of June and lets you click an emoji to react to someone’s status, choosing between the heart eyes, laughing face or shocked emoji. WhatsApp has been letting people set photos, videos, text, and voice notes as their status that disappear after 24 hours for ages now, but you’ve never been able to respond to them before.

The new feature is on the “Updates” section, where you can view the statuses your WhatsApp contacts have set. Right next to the “Reply” box are the new reaction emojis, and everyone is accidentally clicking them by mistake thanks to their very annoying placement.

When you react to someone’s status using the new emojis, it sends the person a message saying you’ve reacted. And people are having to awkwardly explain they didn’t actually mean to put a laughing emoji in response to an announcement that a family member has died. I would want the ground to swallow me up.

The most useless feature Whatsapp introduced,small mistake and you're laughing at a funeral post😂 pic.twitter.com/ciElE453LC

— AmgSarkcess🇬🇭 🥷🏻 (@Amgsarkcess) June 6, 2026

Most Read

From Jordy Chandler and Gavin Arvizo to Wade Robson, where are Michael Jackson’s accusers now?

So, Mackenzie Shirilla has now fully ‘confessed’ she *did* crash the car on purpose

George releases statement explaining the reason he left the Love Island 2026 villa

“Ngl @WhatsApp, this new Status reaction is a bad idea. The emoji reactions sit right where people naturally tap to reply, making accidental reactions way too easy One mistap and you’ve sent “😍” to an ex or “😲” to someone’s loss. Please rethink this design,” someone wrote on Twitter. 

Another person agreed: “Hey @WhatsApp, this new status update is so annoying! Putting the heart button and reaction emojis right at the bottom means I keep mistakenly liking people’s status when I’m just trying to scroll. Please fix this or give us an option to turn it off!”

Sadly, it doesn’t look like there’s any way to turn off the new feature. But this is just a pre-warning so you know to be very, very careful when checking people’s statuses and don’t get yourself into any awkward situations.

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.

Featured image credit: WhatsApp