Asking ChatGPT if a seahorse emoji exists leads to weird results

Interesting! Claude responds similarly (unicode icons are not visible in hn):

  "Yes, there is a seahorse emoji! It's Wait, I apologize - that's actually an octopus. The seahorse emoji is Actually, let me correct myself again - that's a unicorn. I don't believe there is a dedicated seahorse emoji in the standard Unicode emoji set. The closest ocean-related emojis would be things like  (tropical fish),  (blowfish), or  (shark), but no specific seahorse emoji exists."

My recollection is different, its of a half horse half fish. Horse part facing to the left as if its standing on hind legs, horse is brown. Bottom half is blue fish tail.

Thats so interesting.

Grok has a conspiracy theory for this one. 'No, a seahorse emoji does not exist in the official Unicode standard. Many people seem to recall one (often described as a yellow or orange left-facing design), but this appears to be a Mandela effect—a collective false memory—with no evidence it ever officially existed. Social media discussions and videos often highlight this misconception, sometimes showing fabricated images that mimic Apple or other platform styles. Instead, people commonly represent seahorses using combinations like (horse and water wave) or related aquatic emojis such as or .'

chatgpt linked to this site