diff --git a/code/modules/mob/emote.dm b/code/modules/mob/emote.dm
index 3e532c829c9..d7b77a4f98d 100644
--- a/code/modules/mob/emote.dm
+++ b/code/modules/mob/emote.dm
@@ -13,13 +13,13 @@
 
 //The code execution of the emote datum is located at code/datums/emotes.dm
 /mob/proc/emote(act, m_type = null, message = null, intentional = FALSE, force_silence = FALSE)
-	act = lowertext(act)
 	var/param = message
 	var/custom_param = findchar(act, " ")
 	if(custom_param)
 		param = copytext(act, custom_param + length(act[custom_param]))
 		act = copytext(act, 1, custom_param)
 
+	act = lowertext(act)
 	var/list/key_emotes = GLOB.emote_list[act]
 
 	if(!length(key_emotes))