With regard to the smiley face problem, you can keep the other signifiers of tone and just phase out the emoticon so that it’s “That’s awesome. Thanks!” rather than a more passive “thanks”.
Yeah, but then there’s the same problem, just with exclamations points instead of emojis. (Of course, calling it a “problem” in the first place is a little silly.)
With regard to the smiley face problem, you can keep the other signifiers of tone and just phase out the emoticon so that it’s “That’s awesome. Thanks!” rather than a more passive “thanks”.
Yeah, but then there’s the same problem, just with exclamations points instead of emojis. (Of course, calling it a “problem” in the first place is a little silly.)