It took me years not to be annoyed with emoji but in the fullness of time I realized how useful they are both to disambiguate the intention behind the words of the text, and also (with things like👍or 🙂) to signal "I have nothing more to add to this conversation so here is how I end it positively"

I'm still an ancient internet person, and type "colon dash parens" to make a smileyface that I'm told the younger generations think is mid. Oh, the shame.

I completely agree with this. And still use a grand total of 3 emoji. I'm, apparently, the "get off my lawn" guy of communication now (🤷🏼‍♂️)

Shit, I miss text EMOTICONS.

This is the way.

I like them. You can tell little stories with them

What I can’t stand is a site converting my text emoticons into an emoji. Knock that shit off. 😡😡😡

I specifically don't like seeing them in YouTube titles. It's just weird.

My FIL ends every message with the happy poop smiley ..

I read somewhere that they are the text equivalent of gesturing and suddenly they made a whole lot more sense

I have become a fierce advocate of the long press on a text and choosing thumbs up for this reason. Yes, I received your message; no, I have nothing more to say, thumbs up baby.