No bytes are hex bytes. Bytes are bytes. You can display them however you like, even one byte as one emoji (what I argue to be too inconvenient representation in another message). But they are also not "emoji bytes." They are just bytes. As in "octets of bits," bit being a unit of information. And hystorically, the bytes weren't even necessarily octets, but some other group of bits.

This is semantics. For the record: I know what a byte is, and I am fully aware that numbers exist independently of any representation.

The tools for twiddling the bits of hex bytes are not always as readily available as those for Phillips or flathead bytes. Torx bytes are rarer still, and should be avoided.