A laughing emoji can’t fix a message that was rude in the first place.

Tone tags get added after the fact, which means the reader hits the words first and the softener second. By then the flinch already happened. A little icon mostly works on the sender, letting you feel like you took the edge off something you still said. Everyone has done it, and it is worth noticing, because a joke label at the end is doing a lot of work in a lot of group chats.

Reread your message with the softener removed. If it still lands badly, rewrite the sentence rather than adding another one. When you get it wrong, say so plainly instead of adding more punctuation.