I have noticed that the emoji menus on some my devices are trying to be "smart" by presenting me with a shortlist of emojis that are directly related to whatever I typed immediately before. E.g., I was writing a tag that ended in the word "confused" and wanted to add a laughing emoji to contextualize the tone of my comment (to add context not already present in the text), but the emoji menu immediately presented me with three emojis related to being confused (🤔😕😵💫). It's done the same for a variety of other words that have clear emoji parallels. Depending on where the cursor is, it will either insert the emoji after the word or replace the word with the emoji.
Using emojis to basically repeat the previous text isn't something I seem to see much from real people, but I do strongly associate it with spam messages. I'm not sure if that's because the spambots are mimicking the writing/texting style of a group I don't personally encounter much, or if the spambots and emoji menu are both leaning into an emoji usage that's unusual outside of automated writing systems.
Do you commonly use an emoji to express the same concept as the preceding word?
Yes 👍
Yes in specific circumstances (please elaborate in tags/comments)
I don't myself, but I know real people who do this commonly
No, but I use that menu to *replace* a typed word with the emoji
No, and I'd find it weird to see under most circumstances
