About a month ago, Futurism reported that asking ChatGPT to “make a seahorse emoji” would make the LLM go “haywire.” The reason, it turns out, is pretty simple.

There has never been a seahorse emoji. The people who guard the keys of the emoji kingdom, the Unicode Consortium (yes, that’s their real name), never included one in their catalog.

So when ChatGPT is asked to produce it, it breaks, having no reference to recreate it. Personally, I find this fascinating to observe. When the LLM is asked to think for itself instead of pulling from what it “knows,” it seems to have the AI equivalent of a mental breakdown.

apparently you can make ChatGPT crash out by asking "is there a seahorse emoji?"

i tried and it works lol TWICE in the same conversation pic.twitter.com/PfUqYR4cHL

— The Picture of Gandalf the Grey (@someotherva) October 14, 2025

And it isn’t alone.

People, too, have for years been debating the alleged disappearance of the seahorse emoji. In the Mandela Effect subreddit, where users discuss ghost memories of things that never existed, the oldest post referencing the seahorse emoji dates back three years and has nearly 100 upvotes and comments.

The general consensus on Reddit at the time was that many users had memories of a seahorse emoji, though they were divided on what color it was, and they all agreed it was “pointing left.” Another thread on the subreddit, posted just a year ago, echoes the same confusion as the original, this time getting nearly 250 upvotes and 180 comments.  

Trust me, I don’t like letting ChatGPT off the hook, but this time, its delusions are actually pretty valid.