Some fans believe a seahorse emoji existed on the iPhone but disappeared. Was it actually removed, or is this a case of the Mandela effect?
For years, the iPhone has embedded itself in pop culture. Apple's mobile device has been around long enough and has taken such a hold on the market that any minute change does not go unnoticed.
To see a perfect example of this, one just needs to look as far as the recent Facebook app color change drama. Within hours of a glitch causing the popular social networking app's logo to turn black, news of the change was all over the internet, causing a flurry.
What the Internet Thinks Happened to the Seahorse Emoji
Controversy swept the world of iPhone fanatics as fans debated the potential disappearance or removal of the seahorse emoji.
The drama surrounding the potential disappearance of this digital Hippocampinae dates back years but was most recently spurned by a viral Facebook post.
The video shows someone asking Google's AI generative model, Gemini, if there is a seahorse emoji, and it answers with a simple "No."
For years, a certain contingent of iPhone users have been convinced a seahorse emoji once existed and has since been removed from the mobile platform.
A Reddit post from October 2021 seems to mark the origins of this drama. In it, a user asks fellow iPhone fanatics in the r/MandelaEffect subreddit if they remember a seahorse emoji ever being made available.
In the post, the original poster seems dead-set that not only did a seahorse emoji exist, but they remember where it was placed on Apple's emoji keyboard.
As the years have gone on, this question has continued to come up, with fans again posting on various online platforms (namely Reddit and TikTok) that they are convinced the seahorse had been removed and that there was some big conspiracy to cover up its disappearance.
That does not seem to be the case, though. There is no evidence that a seahorse emoji ever existed on the iPhone, and this seems to be a collective instance of the Mandela effect.
The Mandela effect is defined as a "popularized phenomenon in which a group of people collectively misremember facts, events, or other details in a consistent manner" (via Britannica). It refers to a widespread false memory that South African leader Nelson Mandela died in prison, which is not the case.
It seems that enough people have talked about remembering a seahorse emoji that its existence and ensuring removal have become a collective delusion.
According to a moderator on another Reddit post about the missing seahorse, this is not the first time a fictional emoji has been planted in the general public's memory. Previously, the existence of hiking, robber, and swordfish emojis had seen similar posts, all proven fake.
Despite the seahorse emoji being proven to have never existed, some have cited answers from the generative AI language model ChatGPT claiming the emoji was real. These, however, can not be taken as conclusive evidence as the platform is often inaccurate, simply scrubbing the internet (which is full of misinformation) for the basis of its answers.
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