Can We Cool It With The Emojis?

It is a generational thing (probably?), but I just don’t really like all the emojis we use all the time.

I want to say it started back, before LLMs. I want to say in dating profiles?

And for some reason I associate its popularity with Notion.

Somehow it gained popularity as bullet points in more technical writing and company communication:

(From https://www.emojibulletlist.com/)
    😄 Bring joy to your to-dos and daily standups
    🦄 Make your tweets stand out
    📝 Perfect for descriptions and bios

I would bet it lifted some sort of engagement metric and started spreading.

LLM Amplification

As LLMs become a larger and larger part of everyday interaction (the future is not spread out evenly), the emoji use is amplified.

│   🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.ai/code)       │
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│   Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>                |

I’m sure it is a combination of training data and fine tuning.

Which means it will probably get “worse” unless we actively tune it out.

Why I Don’t Like It

I feel patronized. I don’t need a cute little picture every few sentences to keep me reading. Infantilization of communication is the best word I can think of to describe it.

But Kyle, maybe you are just being a stick in the mud?

Is there really anything wrong with adding some color and fun into our daily lives? Does all text really need to be boring and black & white? Maybe you are just… old?

To which I would say… Yeah, you absolutely right.

🚀