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I do remember 1 example of an emoji in tech docs before all of this -- learning github actions (which based on my blog happened in 2021 for me, before ChatGPT release), at one point they had an apple emoji at the final stage saying "done". (I am sure there are others, I just do not remember them.)

But agree excessive emoji's, tables of things, and just being overly verbose are tells for me anymore.

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I do recall emoji use getting more popular in docs and – brrh – in the outputs of CLI programs already before LLMs. I’m pretty sure thst the trend originated from the JS ecosystem.

It absolutely was a trend right before LLM training started — but no way this was already the style of the majority of all tech docs and PRs ever.

The „average“ style, from the Unix manpages from the 1960s through the Linux Documentation Project all the way to the latest super-hip JavaScript isEven emoji vomit README must still have been relatively tame I assume.

Really hate this trend/style. Sucks that it's ossified into many AIs. Always makes me think of young preteens who just started texting/DMing. Grow up!