Is the laugh reaction emoji back?

[SwedishEdith]

Went to react to a post earlier and it was there. Looking again now, and it's gone. Was that a blip or will it be back?

With any luck they might finally be looking into bringing it back, but making it so you can toggle reactions on/off like they said they would.

Hopefully not. There’s enough abuse of the other emojis as it is. They should all be made public so people can’t hide behind their passive aggressiveness.

Seriously OP I hope it was a figment of your imagination.
After the way it was abused previously it would be absolute madness to bring it back.

I loved the laugh emoji, never saw it abused, did see shared humour used to build friendship and kindness, miss it frequently. I suppose our experience of it depends on which bits of MN we use.

I had it abused on my posts but preferred it to the sneering and passive aggression that have replaced it.

I hate it. It’s sneery and mocking, only generally used in an aggressive manner. I think all emojis should be stopped.

You'd have only seen that on your own posts, though.
There have been repeated explanations of how it's been used to privately mock people who are talking about being suicidal etc. And obviously you wouldn't have seen those, or anyone else's experience apart from your own.

I don't mind if it's gone or if people can toggle it on for themselves. People still post emoji of all kinds in the discussion within a thread which seems absolutely fine.

The passive aggressive posters just use the "support" option sarcastically now in any case. Not sure that's much better than the laughing one?

I would like to bring it back. But I'm not terribly sensitive about fuckwits taking the piss out of me on MN - the people who use the emojis in that way are unlikely to be people whose opinion I would respect in any case. But I do accept that it might be upsetting for some.

I'm torn on whether the reactions should be public. It would stop people from hiding, which would obviously be good. But it could also turn MN into a popularity contest, which wouldn't be good.

If people misuse the emojis on my posts, I usually just name and shame them on the thread!

Disagree that it's only used in an aggressive manner. There are lots of posts that are genuinely funny, and intended to be so. It's nice to be able to acknowledge that.

Of course, none of us know what anyone else sees. That's why I stated that I never saw it used unkindly.

Some posters indicate that it was always used unkindly, but that that was just their own experience. As I said, I suspect different areas of the site saw different usage. Maybe removing it from places with serious discussions and leaving it in more playful areas would have been a better option.

Imo, no point in having an extra layer of public "reactions" when people can already post any emoji or text they like in response to a post!

Wouldn't want this place to become Reddit.

I should do that. Thanks for the tip.

only generally used in an aggressive manner.

How could you possibly know what it's generally only used for, when you're not privy to other posters usage?

I liked the laugh emoji and miss it.

Unfortunately there will always be idiots on any social media. I think anyone posting has to accept that.

I do think if you can't cope, then just turn off notifications relating to reactions. Or if it's that traumatic, then don't use open forums on the internet.

I did that the other day and they had an absolute meltdown

A few weeks ago I turned everything off - notifications about who had clicked an emoji, who had quoted me, who had tagged me, any voting options, and I participate on fewer threads, it’s made a phenomenal difference.

And yes, the laughing emoji - I heard (and saw the screenshots) of it being used in very spiteful and nasty ways. Emojis should be made public for those who are interested. But I’ll keep my notifications off. If I randomly look at a comment I have made then I can still see them, but I don’t get notified.