[lapcat]

This is not about gradual language evolution in general. It's about the specific stupidity of emoji, as I already explained:

> Emoji have become trite, lazy, and practically meaningless, especially a few such as "face with tears of joy", "rolling on the floor laughing face", and "fire". Emoticons used to be a supplement for words, indicating the tone of the words, but now emoji are a replacement for words, the ultimate illiteracy.

Also, even worse, emoji are "evolving" so damn fast and continually that they appear as broken boxes if you're not running the very latest browser or operating system version.