I remember when my perfectly clear :) became one picture in yahoo messenger and another in AIM. You should have seen my face when the little <3 my boyfriend and I texted to each other became a gaudy, beating red heart right before my eyes. It's gotten easier to opt out of over the years, but there was a while there when none of the SMS apps allowed you to just send the text without converting it to whatever picture they thought you should want. I think if we'd never gone through that stage, I would hate them less. As it stands, we've made this a whole lot more complicated than it has to be and the art of interpreting the text emoticons is basically lost.

Also, I've got an ex-coworker in her late 40's who apparently now types in sentences where the majority of the parts of speech are replaced by an emoji. "Radishes are 'thumbs down' 'vomiting face'" and other statements built with the same grammar. She's an idiot and that was apparent long before this started, but it's gotten worse over the last 4-5 years.

Basically, I'd like to opt out of picture emojis. I'm not sure anything worthwhile has been communicated with them. Well, maybe leave out grandparents. My husband's grandmother isn't a fast typer, so she sends messages mostly made of sweet emojis and you know it's sent with love. But anyone actually trying to make a point with them irritates me. It feels like they're talking like a baby, but in print.