Yes. I’ve been burned by this exact issue in the past, not realizing that utf8 was not really utf8 in mysql-land. That is a major, major WTF IMO. But I’ve also

Yes. I’ve been burned by this exact issue in the past, not realizing that utf8 was not really utf8 in mysql-land. That is a major, major WTF IMO. But I’ve also seen people relying on validation at the time of insertion so many times that I wanted to warn against that, too. Not in argument against the need for utf8mb4.