I mean, its not like emojis were always standardized. It is completely possible that there was a "emoji" or "emoticon" of a seahorse in a messaging application. I wouldn't be so quick to accept that your memory is incorrect.
Slack has a :seahorse: reacji, and is what I was picturing; I frequently try to use emoji that turn out to be reacji-exclusive (or reacji in the wrong workspace that I learn that way aren't Slack defaults) - I wonder if those insisting it exists are thinking of that.
Oh or Snapchat/TikTok/Instagram video/etc.? I think I've seen clips of whichever of those with overlaid stuff like seahorses.
Yeah, this seems more plausible to me. False memories and mass delusions are absolutely real, but if this is one, I'd like to know how it started and why it is so specific.
E.g. no one seems to be misremembering a sea cucumber emoji or anglerfish emoji - but there are other alleged emojis such as swordfish or bandit/bank robber, where people have the same reaction:
It would be interesting to see if LLM behavior is also similar. E.g. if you asked about an anglerfish emoji, would they straight-up tell you it doesn't exist, but for swordfish would start to spiral?
