I have a hobby of collecting my movie ticket stubs. I have kept all of them, even for the worst movies. That is, until recently. As soon as I got home from "The Emoji Movie," I took a lighter, went out in the backyard, and set my stub on fire.

"The Emoji Movie" is everything we feared it would be: an unimaginative cash grab, reeking of focus groups and cynicism.

Since I strongly urge you not to see it, I'll just attempt to describe the "plot." Gene (T.J. Miller) is a "meh" emoji who is a glitch because he can make more than one expression. He is ridiculed by the other emojis for his flaw, and faces "deletion" by the tyrannical Smiler (Maya Rudolph.) So Gene embarks on a quest to become "normal." He meets another outcast, Hi-5 (James Corden) and with the help of hacker Jailbreak (Anna Faris) they venture to Dropbox (seriously!) to reprogram Gene so he is "normal" when he -- and everyone else -- realizes how special he is and learns to embrace differences. He then completes his ultimate goal of being used by smartphone owner Alex to text his crush.

It is basically "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" with emojis.

It's not a terrible-looking movie. It's mediocre at best, with a headache inducing explosion of bright colors. There is such a dearth of humor, that even the little kids in the audience didn't laugh at the lamest one-liners. Who actually, unironically says the words "hashtag blessed" in conversation?

Perhaps the most viscerally disturbing thing about "The Emoji Movie" is how it normalizes playing with your bloody phone every second of the day. The opening narration calls emojis "the most important invention ever." Kids are always shown with their heads buried in their phones. The teacher has to remind students to put their phones away because, presumably, their parents never taught them basic manners. Alex appears to be reading a book, when he is holding his phone in between the book's spine. Worst of all, actual adults thought this was all okay.

I'm no one to talk. I am as guilty of being addicted to my phone as anyone else, but I at least know nothing beats face-to-face communication. I can go without my computer from time to time. I know that there is a time and a place for phones. I still read books, admittedly not as often as I'd like.

I am old enough to remember dial-up internet, and the days before social media. When I was a kid, I watched TV, played with toys and went outside. Most of the time I spent on the computer, I spent playing my Britney Spears CDs or Barbie Magic Hairstyler. I don't know what kids like nowadays, and I don't think I want to know, either.

I guess for my generation, the advent of smartphones and all that came overnight. Sometimes I still find myself trying to process it all, and I even find myself reminiscing on the 90s and 2000s, when it didn't matter how many Facebook likes your Vegas pictures got, because there was no Facebook.

I don't hate smartphones, the internet or social media. I just don't don't want any kids, let alone my own, to grow up thinking that their phone is more important than the air they breathe or the people they love, and I feel like that was one of the movie's main takeaways. Kids are impressionable, you know.

As execrable as it is, "The Emoji Movie" does not signal the end times. Movies based on pop culture phenomena are nothing new. In my lifetime, I've seen movies based on theme park rides and toy lines. A movie about Facebook was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 2011. I watched a found-footage horror movie set during a Skype call. We've survived them all. As long as things are invented and become popular, Hollywood will find a way to bring them to the big screen.

This just isn't a good example of one.

To put it in simpler terms, this 💩 🎥 is a complete waste of 🕰️ and 💵 . Just say 🚫 !