alt Hacker NewsIt does not at all indicate the effort that went into doing the thing. Clearly not.
I propose that what you enjoy is having a token of the appearance of effort, easily constructed and easily observed and easily suitable for low-effort handling of these proxy objects for actual work.
I think you’re missing the sarcasm in their comment.
They’re saying that the emoji usage is telling them that very little effort was put into the PR and that they’ll treat it accordingly.