I'm in the "Use em if you wanna as they can easily accentuate points you try to make, and can help with understanding tone, but if you put more than like...3-4 max in 1 comment you should probably rethink your life" camp.
I am fine with them, especially since they can be used to indicate the tone of a comment that would otherwise be difficult to discern. However, when you do that every other word as emoji thing (like the various copypasta that go around) or you put hand claps after every word, then I will hate you for the rest of my life and haunt you from the grave.
Judging by the comments it looks like all the extreme emoji haters are the toxic people who refuse to leave Reddit. I love that for the most part the people that left Reddit and are active in Kbin/Lemmy aren't the super toxic ones that frequented Reddit, it's really a breath of fresh air
Same! I lurked a lot on Reddit because even trivial comments felt like they’d get picked at (or more often just not result in additional conversation). Here I feel much more comfortable typing and not second guessing. Feels good.