But they're not too different from the set of infantilizing pictograms that did make their way into the standard & that grown-ups are now expected to deal with.
“This year’s proposals for new entries into the standard hieroglyphic dictionary include: slave being whipped, bearded slave being whipped, woman being humped by a donkey, and bearded donkey being ridden by a pregnant cat.”
The world is better because the director of my billion dollar project is able to heart react in the chat, not worse.
I didn't have a huge beef with the proprietary emojis on old skool Skype and MSN, TBH - they were technically bound to those platforms, and the platforms mostly to private social spheres where they'd form part of the local slang. (And where Skype was used at work in the 00's, people actually refrained from them and acted in a businesslike manner).
Modern day emojis being part of unicode implies that they're somehow universally understood, and that it's fine to sprinkle them around in any kind of social context. Quite horrifying, really.
This just reads a bit like someone older ranting at the younger generation being glued to their smartphone all the time. Modern day emojis are part of our writing system. I use them all the time, from Slack to WhatsApp. They are universally understood, to a limit of course, but I see everybody else using them too and no "office drama" because Alice misunderstood the emoji Bob was using. They make it easier for me to express my emotions and they are as naturally as speaking. There's nothing extraordinarily horrifying really.