title: How can I restore proper encoding of 4 byte emoji characters that have been stored in plain utf8 - like this: ðŸ˜Š?
body: <p>Is it possible to re-encode emoji 3 or 4 byte strings into emoji again?</p>
  
  <p>I inherited a MySQL Innodb table with utf8_unicode_ci encoding. These emoji 4 byte strings are everywhere. Is it possible to translate them back into emoji?</p>
  
  <p>First step was to modify the <code>character set</code> to <code>utf8mb4</code>.  This changed all strings like <code>ð��£</code> to strings like this: <code>ðŸ˜Š</code>.</p>
  
  <p>But what I really want is to translate <code>ðŸ˜Š</code> into something like <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/W7IhJ.png" alt="smiley emoji">. (I have no idea if <code>ðŸ˜Š</code> is really a smiley)</p>