It's sort of contextual, I think most of the article starts from things that are true in some way, but exaggerates them and takes it a bit too far.

The plain smiley can sound like sarcasm/irony or a passive-agressive tone, because it looks a little lifeless compared to modern emojis that are more expressive. It used to be the most expressive you could be, but now it's the most plain you can be. The least amount of smiling you could be smiling. It can look like a fake smile as a result.

Serious take: The new generation rejects what was acceptable to the previous generation as part of the process of developing their own identity.

Humorous take: Sensitive snowflakes gonna sensitive.

Here's an attempt to demonstrate how :) can come off as very toxic or passive aggressive:

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Serious take: The new generation rejects what was acceptable to the previous generation as part of the process of developing their own identity :)

Humorous take: Sensitive snowflakes gonna sensitive :)

And I say that's their problem. ┐(￣ー￣)┌

I got into the habit of using =P to suggest humor or not being too serious, but since I picked it up from someone at least 10 years older than me, I suppose it could come off as toxic or arrogant to people 10 years younger and none have told me yet

Exactly, it's old fashioned - if you've only ever used a phone keyboard with a dedicated emoji keyboard button, it's conspicuous. This doesn't apply to the emoji version but that has the bad luck of unfortunate, cold representations in most emoji fonts.

Same age cohort as you, I’ll continue genuinely using “:)” no matter what.

It depends on the context, but the standard smiley face has effectively been replaced with the following two:

https://emojipedia.org/smiling-face/

https://emojipedia.org/smiling-face-with-smiling-eyes/

This explains it a bit: https://alicecorner.medium.com/the-slightly-smiling-emoji-is... (especially the Spongebob part)

That was the most real one imo. The :) is super toxic. Least aggressive would be ^^ or :3

I have seen :) and felt it as toxic. I also don't believe it is inherently toxic.

The surprising part to me is that I have an old pamphlet from Hayes that has a catalog of emoticons as we used to refer to them. This means that :) has changed its meaning in a generation or so... which I never considered that "pictograms" could do that.

It could also be that the context sets the tone and the emoticons are nuanced.

No zoomer I talk to has any idea what ^^ means, it seems like a millennial giveaway. I haven't tested :3, but in general it seems to me they're barely aware of plain-text emotes.

I often wonder if please is passive aggressive and I’m gen-x

There’s also some etiquette about what emojis are boomer (thus u should never use them).