Kind of a salty take on it. Personally, I appreciate the emojis, they allow a more dense information transfer when used correctly, like when reacting to a chat message.

Similarly, with Github Discussions, each emoji has a distinct meaning and can convey the topic with many less pixels. Ex, I can use a as a replacement for "Feature request", as a replacement for "Bug/Issue", and for "Vulnerability".

Now if you start shoving them as the only way to communicate something, there's your problem.