While most emojis conveys obvious feelings or sentiments, or sometimes a few different but close ones, or that can easily be interpreted depending on the context, what does means to you, as a reaction?
I take it as a prefix for other reactions, e.g., would mean “Discourse love” ; would mean “Discourse power” or something. I cannot read it on its own.
One thing I have learned about emoji on sites is that the culture you come from has a lot to do with what emojis mean. IIRC in either Vietnam or Singapore they used a different social platform and over there a single emoji was rare. It was as if they talked sentences with emojis, so a single emoji not making sense alone makes sense to me, for using it in combination with others does make sense but not something I am use to seeing.
I’m not sure I’ve ever received the reaction and if I did, I would just interpret it as Discourse approves (assuming it was team member who used it). I know I’ve never used to for a reaction to another post.
When I use it, it’s usually a form of recognition of a very Discourse-ish (in terms of philosophy, design, feature, culture, etc) content.
If the author isn’t team, it’s a way to express that the post fits Discourse in several ways (those described in my previous sentence, for instance).