Reddit was at the extreme end of emoji rejection as far as I ever saw. Odd that you experienced differently. I often saw well-upvoted comments such as “downvote due to emoji use” next to heavily downvoted emojis on Reddit.
Not an emoji fan myself, but each to their own.
Friends did, Big Bang Theory does all the time, but yeah pretty much every yank comedy contains some negativity towards Indian food. I don’t watch much comedy, but it seems to be a meme in their shows.