I built a CSS framework where every class name is an emoji

BEMoji is a fully featured BEM framework that uses emoji as class names. It's stupid. It works. It's on npm.

title: I built a CSS framework where every class name is an emoji published: true description: BEMoji is a fully featured BEM framework that uses emoji as class names. It's stupid. It works. It's on npm. tags: css, jokes, Tailwind, BEM cover_image: https://tomhayes.github.io/BEMoji/og-image.png

I got into one too many Tailwind vs BEM arguments this month and decided the correct response was to build something that makes both sides equally uncomfortable.

Meet BEMoji: a production-grade CSS framework where every class name is an emoji.

<article class="🃏">
  <div class="🃏__🖼️ 🃏__🖼️--🌟">
    <img src="hero.jpg" alt="...">
  </div>
  <div class="🃏__📝">
    <h2 class="🃏__🔠">Card Title</h2>
  </div>
  <footer class="🃏__🦶">
    <button class="🔘 🔘--🌟">Primary</button>
    <button class="🔘 🔘--👻">Disabled</button>
  </footer>
</article>

That is valid, production HTML. It works in every modern browser. I am not sorry.

Why does this exist

The core BEM pattern is block__element--modifier. BEMoji keeps that structure exactly, just swapping string names for emoji tokens. The double-underscore and double-hyphen delimiters are preserved, so the class names are still machine-parseable even if they're completely illegible to humans.

It started as a joke and then I accidentally made it real.

It's actually kind of a full framework

This is the part that got out of hand. BEMoji ships with:

• 143 canonical emoji tokens across blocks, elements, modifiers and utilities
• A complete design token system (yes, using emoji as CSS custom property names: --📏-4, --🌑-md, --⭕-full)
• 24 pre-built components (cards, buttons, badges, alerts, modals, tables, the lot)
• A PostCSS plugin so you can write readable BEM in your source and get emoji compiled at build time
• A Vite plugin with HMR support
• An ESLint plugin that enforces correct token usage
• A React bem() helper
• A CLI with init, compile, audit, decode, encode and export commands

The CLI's decode command is probably my favourite part:

npx bemoji decode "🃏__🖼️--🌟"
# card__image--featured

The PostCSS workflow

You don't have to write emoji by hand in your source files. The PostCSS plugin lets you use a bracket shorthand:

.[card] {
  border-radius: var(--⭕-md);
  box-shadow: var(--🌑-sm);
}

.[card__image--featured] {
  outline: 2px solid var(--🟡);
}

Which compiles to:

.🃏 {
  border-radius: var(--⭕-md);
  box-shadow: var(--🌑-sm);
}

.🃏__🖼️--🌟 {
  outline: 2px solid var(--🟡);
}

So the output is emoji soup but your source stays readable. Or as readable as it was before, anyway.

The React helper

import { useBem } from 'bemoji/react';

function Card({ featured }) {
  const b = useBem('card');

  return (
    <article className={b()}>
      <div className={b('image', { featured })}>
        ...
      </div>
    </article>
  );
}

// When featured=true, className becomes "🃏__🖼️ 🃏__🖼️--🌟"

There are legitimate arguments for this

I feel compelled to make the honest case, because it genuinely surprised me:

Free obfuscation. Your production CSS is meaningless to anyone without the config file. You get the obfuscation benefits of CSS Modules without the build complexity.

Enforced vocabulary. Every UI concept maps to one canonical emoji. The config file is your design system contract. Changing a concept's emoji is a one-line config change that propagates everywhere.

It's faster to type than you think. Once you have emoji picker shortcuts set up, 🃏 is two keystrokes. .card__image--featured is 24. The maths eventually works out.

None of this makes it a good idea. But they are real arguments.

The config

// bemoji.config.js
export default {
  blocks: {
    card:    '🃏',
    navbar:  '🧭',
    modal:   '🪟',
    alert:   '🔔',
  },
  elements: {
    image:  '🖼️',
    title:  '🔠',
    body:   '📝',
    button: '🔘',
  },
  modifiers: {
    primary:  '🌟',
    danger:   '🔴',
    disabled: '👻',
    loading:  '⏳',
  },
};

Install

npm install bemoji
npx bemoji init

The init command scaffolds a config, imports the base CSS, and wires up PostCSS.

Links

• Docs + demo: https://tomhayes.github.io/BEMoji/
• GitHub: https://github.com/tomhayes/BEMoji
• npm: https://npmjs.com/package/bemoji

My personal favourite token is 🦶 for footer. If you find a better use for it than I have, open a PR.