--- title: Emoji Are Obsolete | daily.dev description: A personal essay reflecting on the history of emoji, from the original 1982 smiley invented to signal a joke on a bulletin board through the 1990s pager heart... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/emoji-are-obsolete-nur6kkeds twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Emoji Are Obsolete | daily.dev og:description: A personal essay reflecting on the history of emoji, from the original 1982 smiley invented to signal a joke on a bulletin board through the 1990s pager heart... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/emoji-are-obsolete-nur6kkeds og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/NUr6KkeDs.png og:image:alt: Emoji Are Obsolete og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Emoji Are Obsolete **[SQL Authority](https://daily.dev/sources/sql-authority)** · 8 min read · 22 upvotes · 22 comments ## Summary A personal essay reflecting on the history of emoji, from the original 1982 smiley invented to signal a joke on a bulletin board through the 1990s pager heart symbol and DoCoMo's original emoji set, to their present role as low-effort workplace acknowledgments (👍, ✅, 👀). The author argues that as AI-generated text becomes fluent enough to convey warmth, tact, and reassurance in words alone, the original purpose of emoji—compensating for emotion lost in plain text—is fading. Yet the author still chooses to send a small human emoji rather than let a machine polish the sentence, arguing that imperfect, deliberately chosen human touches may become more valuable precisely because machines can now imitate them. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@marrieto** · 17 upvotes > I disagree, I prefer a short human written text with emojis, chosen with the authors' personality **@pawelanek** · 5 upvotes > The emojis will never be obsolete until we will replace visual input and output completely. The main purpose is to pass maximum information in small, clear and instantly recognizable form. Like reacting to message without writing: Looking at it, OK, or Done. > > The ways of communications evolve but people always tend to use short forms whenever they can. Even before emoticons they were other methods like shortcuts started during Arpanet (GDR, ROFL, SIG, AFK), Bulletin Boards and further minimized by SMS language ( CU, gr8, U2, TY) but also directly stated emotions \**grin** \**giggle** or... **@musikk** · 4 upvotes > The introductory example is interesting as a simple smiley or smiling emoji does not soften a sentence that does not stand on its own as being soft anymore. It rather conveys the opposite: arrogance or passive aggression. > > > We need to talk about the index strategy. :) > > So be careful with that. :) **@0x\_rorschach** · 2 upvotes > I reject this premise entirely. a well-chosen emoji can contain a whole lot of information in the right context. I cannot think of one place where I currently use emojis where a more verbose snippet of text would be preferred. **@doncho** · 1 upvotes > Emojis are fun and will always be, despite that AI made us all suspicious about them! ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [“I’m obviously taking a risk here by advertising emoji directly.” – Unsung](https://daily.dev/posts/i-m-obviously-taking-a-risk-here-by-advertising-emoji-directly-unsung-tvx3shgu4) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#genai](https://daily.dev/tags/genai), [#human-computer-interaction](https://daily.dev/tags/human-computer-interaction) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/emoji-are-obsolete-nur6kkeds) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Emoji Are Obsolete","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/emoji-are-obsolete-nur6kkeds","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/emoji-are-obsolete-nur6kkeds"},"datePublished":"2026-09-01T01:34:12.551Z","dateModified":"2026-09-01T03:47:32.642Z","description":"A personal essay reflecting on the history of emoji, from the original 1982 smiley invented to signal a joke on a bulletin board through the 1990s pager heart...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a9e5065e38d86db1370c7554d7964ece?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a9e5065e38d86db1370c7554d7964ece?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"SQL Authority","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"SQL Authority","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--reCGnvgi--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780213436/logos/sql-authority?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/sql-authority"},"commentCount":22,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/emoji-are-obsolete-nur6kkeds","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":22},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":22}],"keywords":"genai,human-computer-interaction","timeRequired":"PT8M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"SQL Authority","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/sql-authority"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Emoji Are Obsolete"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/emoji-are-obsolete-nur6kkeds","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"I disagree, I prefer a short human written text with emojis, chosen with the authors’ personality","datePublished":"2026-09-02T04:56:15.729Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/NUr6KkeDs#c-Yz1ARVZh6","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Martin","url":"https://daily.dev/marrieto","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/25181707?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":17}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"The emojis will never be obsolete until we will replace visual input and output completely. The main purpose is to pass maximum information in small, clear and instantly recognizable form. Like reacting to message without writing: Looking at it, OK, or Done.\nThe ways of communications evolve but people always tend to use short forms whenever they can. Even before emoticons they were other methods like shortcuts started during Arpanet (GDR, ROFL, SIG, AFK), Bulletin Boards and further minimized by SMS language ( CU, gr8, U2, TY) but also directly stated emotions *grin* *giggle* or similar.\nWhile there is no need to save characters or bandwidth anymore there is still a need to save time on reading those bloated AI sentences. One emoticon gives instant understanding the same way one image is better than thousand words.","datePublished":"2026-09-02T09:15:05.852Z","dateModified":"2026-09-02T09:16:47.250Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/NUr6KkeDs#c-czqVppdGw","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Paweł Gliniak","url":"https://daily.dev/pawelanek","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"The introductory example is interesting as a simple smiley or smiling emoji does not soften a sentence that does not stand on its own as being soft anymore. It rather conveys the opposite: arrogance or passive aggression.\n\nWe need to talk about the index strategy. :)\n\nSo be careful with that. :)","datePublished":"2026-09-02T08:08:46.263Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/NUr6KkeDs#c-7SUN4mMK6","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Werner Hahn","url":"https://daily.dev/musikk","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocJr9LIXrt1E5zAmLx3QtOkq4iGvcwdh-t__bh6z4dhVoZyOEgE=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I reject this premise entirely. a well-chosen emoji can contain a whole lot of information in the right context. I cannot think of one place where I currently use emojis where a more verbose snippet of text would be preferred.","datePublished":"2026-09-07T14:38:58.958Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/NUr6KkeDs#c-L4xthMAwi","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"jon","url":"https://daily.dev/0x_rorschach","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/40550502?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Emojis are fun and will always be, despite that AI made us all suspicious about them!","datePublished":"2026-09-06T13:58:30.015Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/NUr6KkeDs#c-NgGj9bN4S","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Doncho Angelov","url":"https://daily.dev/doncho","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--j1MSm0hy--/f_auto/v1716369534/avatars/avatar_EB0j0Umzh5v3zGWUSL5ma"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}]} ```