@very-rusty said
Why do you think they were put there if not to use?
Do they irritate you?
Wax crayons also exist to be used, but don't expect to be hired if you write your job application in them.
And yes, the inanity and vapidity with which Emojis are almost always used irritates me. As does the way in which hordes and hordes of them are invented and shoved into Unicode, where neither pictures nor colours belong.
I wouldn't care if they were only used on party invitations or in the op-eds of the Sun. As common as they are getting, they're whittling away at serious communication and causing unnecessary confusion.
That's what irritates me about them: they're a regression in our ability to communicate which we're supposed to like because they're "fun". Limericks are fun, and if you do them right, linguistically creative. A picture of an aubergine is not.