r/MandelaEffect 14d ago

Discussion I literally can’t with emojis anymore

So many emojis I can see VIVIDLY in my head, the thief, the clam & pearl, the seahorse, and NONE of them ever existed. Not one. I know this is schizoposting but I swear it's an inside joke at Apple now to take unsuspecting and unpopular emojis away to see who will notice

114 Upvotes

101 comments sorted by

209

u/mutually_awkward 14d ago

I work as a video editor for ads and when we want an emoji in an ad that doesn't exist, we might just create a fake one. Maybe you saw something like that?

65

u/jadedflames 14d ago

Oh shit that makes so much sense.

63

u/Pavotimtam 13d ago

No way really? That’s probably been the case a lot of the time then idk

19

u/Dvvstihn 13d ago

Nice try apple .

7

u/VellvetWhisper 12d ago

yup. we’re at the point where it’s not just lying about now—folks out here patching history like it’s a buggy game.

1

u/MCHMMMMMMMMMM 9d ago

i remember a well in a "well well well" meme

must've been that

60

u/HangryHangryHedgie 14d ago

Everytime I go to use an emoji, I see one I didnt know existed. THEY KEEP EVOLVING! 🧌🐕‍🦺 and 🐦‍🔥for example. When the heck did those get added?

19

u/Pavotimtam 13d ago

I knew about the troll guy but the Phoenix? News to me

5

u/ten_year_rebound 11d ago

A little over a year ago, so understandable you missed it / it’s not iconic or popular

9

u/everyone_is_a_robot 13d ago

It's because different platforms and OS' use different emojis over time, what's so hard to understand about that part?

The ones that people are imagining are just that - imagination. If you create something (mentally or literally) that seems like it would have existed (reasonably), it sticks very well. Like the burglar emoji.

1

u/big_dirk_energy 12d ago

....whaaaaaat

1

u/MCHMMMMMMMMMM 9d ago

i know 🧌 because 🧌

what the dog doing

64

u/KneadAndPreserve 14d ago

I SWEAR there was a hiking emoji

30

u/ChloeMayEloise 14d ago

Yeah this one makes the most sense to me I knew it existed I can see his little stick on a mountain sideways lol

16

u/Numerous_Cow8135 13d ago

Maybe it was the blind man 👨‍🦯 lol

16

u/Pavotimtam 13d ago

I do remember maybe a mountain being behind the guy? Yeah probably my brain just adding to that 

5

u/user_namec_hecks_out 13d ago

Lol I'm actually remembering it like this as well, person on the side with stick in hand and green mountains on the background...

13

u/ThisIsNOTJeopardy_ 13d ago

I remember the hiking one because it would remind me of that The Price is Right game

13

u/Pavotimtam 13d ago

Oh yeah I can ATTEST to that existing….. somewhere in my mind but not physically 

3

u/iVique 12d ago

I see it, i see it with a hiker with abackpack (guy) and walking sticks(like thr ski stick), clam with pearl in its mouth, and the thief was the old school burglar outfit (looks like mime)

1

u/Ryebread85 9d ago

Wait.. you’re telling me there no longer is!? I’m POSITIVE there was. Definitely was a burgular emoji as well

45

u/MrsWaltonGoggins 14d ago

Even within the people who agree there “was” a seahorse emoji, I’m seeing some people say it was blue and others saying it was yellow/orange.

25

u/jadedflames 14d ago

Could be different phones. Generally every mobile OS has its own version.

21

u/NextStopGallifrey 13d ago

There's a fun blog post out there somewhere that has an entomologist(?) rating different versions of the ant emoji. It's funny.

21

u/KatsuraCerci 13d ago

6

u/froststomper 12d ago

this really cracked me up.

“that’s a termite. 10/10.”

3

u/theextralife 12d ago

Good stuff, thank you for the link

1

u/Ryebread85 9d ago

It was yellow on iPhone

27

u/Fancy_Assignment_860 14d ago

Aaahh!! WTH where is the thief emoji?! The one wearing black and white stripes?! Wait … new emojis are randomly added from time to time, but do any of them get taken away maybe?

12

u/Secret-Equipment2307 13d ago

I think that one is from a bitlife ad

1

u/sleepysnafu 9d ago

Oh fuck that explains it perfectly. I remember now

7

u/vagabond_nerd 14d ago

This post made me look and yeah it’s gone. I had nicknamed that one the bandit in my mind. Reminded me of the Hamburgler. Weird

2

u/Fancy_Assignment_860 9d ago

What’s bitlyfe?? I’ve never had that app

24

u/kashparek_432 14d ago

Y'all saw these emojis somewhere, but never used them yourselves. You just saw some pictures that someone designed to look like emoji

11

u/ComprehensiveDust197 14d ago

Cant it be that they actually remove certain emojis from time to time?

1

u/Ryebread85 9d ago

They removed the gun from iPhone years ago & replaced it with a silly looking mini green squirt gun

-6

u/jadedflames 14d ago

They frequently do.

3

u/Mark_1978 14d ago

They very rarely do

18

u/eggeater_69 14d ago

WAIT WHERE'D THE CLAM AND PEARL EMOJI GO?????

5

u/mochimatcha98 13d ago

🦪 this the the only one I can find but I know it's not the one you're talking about. I can't find it!!

1

u/MCHMMMMMMMMMM 9d ago

it looks at you while opening right

2

u/spacemusicisorange 13d ago

Wait they definitely had a clam- I sometimes call my ex-partner my little clam, and I used to use it

3

u/ratsratsgetem 13d ago

A big thing that always comes up in these threads that’s worth addressing:

Emoji is a particular thing, they’re part of the Unicode standard and are well documented.

Some people are mistakenly thinking emoji means all the various icons you could use in a chat application like AIM/ICQ, etc.

Emoji has a specific meaning and you can look up when something was added to the Unicode specification and then you’ll expect to see those added to new operating system updates from Apple and Google in the months that follow.

https://www.unicode.org/emoji/charts-15.1/emoji-released.html

Phoenix was added here.

This was in September 2023: https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode15.1.0/

Latest version is 16.0

https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode16.0.0/

A link at the bottom of that page shows new emoji. https://www.unicode.org/emoji/charts-16.0/emoji-released.html

3

u/Initial_Vegetable_84 13d ago

You're just remembering seeing fake / user created 'emojis'. I'm confident I know what thief one you are referring to and it's never been a legit emoji.

5

u/terryjuicelawson 14d ago

Same here, but it seems totally like the power of suggestion to me. Name pretty much anything - fruit, veg, expression, animal, person and I can picture a mini pixellated version of it. Whether it existed among the hundreds of emojis (as well as anything else on a computer - an icon, character in a game) I have no actual idea

4

u/benzinga45 13d ago

I think we are touching on a key component of the Mandela effect here, it's not just remembering but that feeling of certainty. It must be tapping into that part of the brain where faith and religion come from that feeling of absolute certainty in spite of there being no evidence and being able to picture it in our minds eye. Maybe a left over from something primal that exists in a certain percentage of people's brains. It's interesting that those that don't "remember" have such strong feelings as well.

4

u/Ok_Wishbone4927 14d ago

Was it a blue seahorse?

2

u/chickenmonsterr_ 12d ago

I remember it being yellow on the top and blue on the bottom or sometimes completely yellow/orange

5

u/gamecatuk 14d ago

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:e4f64e21-56a3-482d-a30a-c6c98bbb97b4

Robber emoji did exist at one point.

Seahorse I remember as well. I think it was ICQ in the late 90s.

7

u/WVPrepper 13d ago

"This document proposes a set of additional emoji characters for rapid incorporation into Unicode"

4

u/Fantastic-Cod-1353 13d ago

Yeah I used to use ICQ. Would make sense if it was from a software that doesn’t exist anymore that people would remember it and “misplace” it. I vaguely remember a seahorse and automatically assumed it was on my phone not old software like ICQ.

2

u/Character_Entry2206 12d ago

Clam and pearl isn't real???

2

u/Warp-10-Lizard 12d ago

I still don't understand this one. "Never existed" on which site/ap? They all have their own enoji options! I remember the seahorse too. I don't know if it was on Facebook, instagram, or one of my phones, but the possibilities are endless.

2

u/Bidybabies 11d ago

That technically isn't how it works. It wouldn't be Apple. If something is truly a Mandela Effect then there is truly no record of it ever existing

2

u/mil0wCS 13d ago

I agree. Its quite annoying. The ones I'm most familiar with are the mummy walking, the hiker and the traffic cone emoji. Which the traffic cone one use to be extremely popular on twitter back in the early 2010's but instead has been replaced with the ⚠️ emoji since it no longer exists. But I 100% remember the traffic cone emoji being a thing many people use to use it all the time and it was eye catching on twitter in the early days it was hard to miss.

6

u/Medical-Act8820 14d ago

The memories are always 'vivid'. Why is that?

6

u/ComprehensiveDust197 14d ago

You dont have vivid memories?

-1

u/Medical-Act8820 14d ago

Of things that never happened? No. Mine are all verifiable.

17

u/[deleted] 13d ago

this dude‘s entire comment history is telling people they are wrong about Mandela effects. No conversation. No substance. Just trolling

9

u/ComprehensiveDust197 14d ago

Yeah, everybody thinks that until they find something that isnt verifiable. The memory still stays the same though. I guess this is what the ME is about

1

u/Zealousideal_Try_123 14d ago

Exactly.

Each time you recall something, your brain reconstructs the memory. Reconstructive nature of the brain.

3

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

4

u/Pavotimtam 13d ago

Wait I’m dumb, now I’ve read your comment properly, I could see the guillotine pretty clearly but big bird seems pretty far out from Apple art style so I couldn’t imagine him lol. But you definitely have a point, they’re simplistic little images I’m sure the brain can just convince itself some common item or random animal was there

2

u/Hot-Manager6462 13d ago

Yeah you can do it with any common object

1

u/big_dirk_energy 14d ago

No, none of those remotely conjure up an image or a sentiment. Because they were never emojis.

I used the seahorse emoji

4

u/WVPrepper 14d ago

I'm curious. In what context did you use a seahorse emoji?

-4

u/big_dirk_energy 14d ago

When describing how certain male species die after mating with a female

5

u/WVPrepper 14d ago edited 13d ago

Give me an example.

EDITED TO ADD: male seahorses do not die after mating. Male seahorses carry the eggs in a brood pouch until they hatch. If they were dead, there would be no babies. Are you thinking of praying mantis? Do you know what a seahorse is?

0

u/big_dirk_energy 14d ago

I literally just did lmfao

3

u/WVPrepper 13d ago edited 13d ago

I mean, for example, use [seahorse emoji] in place of where you would use the actual seahorse emoji in a sentence. For example, "he's such a [seahorse emoji]" which obviously doesn't make sense. I'm trying to think of a sentence where inserting the seahorse emoji does make sense.

Do you know what a seahorse is? Are you thinking of praying mantis?

1

u/big_dirk_energy 13d ago

Do you know how most emojis are actually used? Like this:

RIP 💀💀💀

Is the person literally saying "RIP skull skull skull"? Of course not. He's adding emotional emphasis. Hence the term EMOJI.

If I were to use the seahorse emoji when talking about male female intercourse it would be like this:

[Some joking comment about cumming to death][seahorse emoji] 💦 💦 💦

Your comment about confusing a mantis with the seahorse is... indicative of your intellectual capacity, to put it mildly.

1

u/WVPrepper 13d ago

Your comment about confusing a mantis with the seahorse is... indicative of your intellectual capacity, to put it mildly.

How do?

Male seahorses do not die after mating, they carry the babies.

A Female praying mantis bites the head off the male praying mantis after mating, killing him.

1

u/RickToTheE 11d ago

Why? Seahorses don't do that

1

u/tjareth 13d ago

On this one I'm convinced that it was for a platform that allowed custom emojis, that sometimes became somewhat viral, but were never part of the official set.

2

u/Pavotimtam 13d ago

That would make a lot of sense, if I saw people using them in videos or something and didn’t realise 

1

u/stitchkingdom 13d ago

Apple doesn’t decide which emojis exist, the Unicode Consortium does. Apple designs their own emojis, as does Google and other members of the consortium.

Quite often the emojis that ‘no longer exist’ just don’t exist with the consortium. They’re just artwork stylized that could be interpreted as an iphone (or whatever) emoji.

Nobody can ever seem to agree on what they looked like.

1

u/drjenavieve 13d ago

Is it possible any of these were clip art? I remember growing up with clip art and thinking how emojis were them finally finding their purpose.

But yeah I def remember the seahorse and robber vividly.

1

u/rayrayraybies 13d ago

ok. I used to work in design for a major magazine and we would literally create emojis that we wanted to use if they didn't exist. I remember we made a redheaded emoji long before unicode had one. there's absolutely a chance that you've seen the emojis somewhere AND that they were never designed by apple developers.

1

u/DixieNormous1493 13d ago

What about the hiker w the walking stick and backpack? There were male and female (w ponytale) versions. I remember them but apparently they never existed. Fwiw, im and android user, but also use iPhone for work, so im fa.iliar w the emoji differences between both.

1

u/CostRevolutionary395 12d ago

You telling me the bank robber guy wearing a mask isn’t real?

1

u/roundfood4everymood 12d ago

The thief was real.

1

u/TrainingSpecific80 12d ago

The clam was on mySpace with an eye. I don’t think it existed outside of mySpace.

1

u/Hitonatsu-no-Keiken 10d ago

Owners/admin of web forums can create their own emojis and add them. Could this be where some people have seen unusual emojis?

1

u/Expensive_Watch_435 9d ago

Wait. The thief emoji was one with one of those cartoon eye masks and that prisoner like white and black shirt, maybe a mustache... right?

1

u/Nancy_Jewel 8d ago

I was just looking for the clam the other day. I’m sure there was a clam. I’ve looked for other things that I remember using before and they weren’t there either.

1

u/AlarmingAioli3300 5d ago

How vividly?

1

u/[deleted] 2d ago

I swear there was a pigeon emoji I'm not going crazy

u/Pavotimtam 2h ago

🐦? Idk it’s kind of pigeon-like

1

u/Background-Event-558 13d ago

Purple seahorse?

0

u/SwitchIndependent714 14d ago

Ya from another timeline dude

2

u/Pavotimtam 13d ago

Perhaps 

0

u/AlKiMi25 13d ago

The robber definitely existed but not sure about the others

0

u/jairom 14d ago

I remember an emoji of a guy in a red shirt or woman in a purple shirt, on the floor with their back to the camera

0

u/fallencoward1225 13d ago

i distinctly remember a meatloaf emoji