I just got into a situation recently about somebody who simply doesn't like smilies in posts. In another completely unrelated post I needed to express that I wasn't being serious about something and included a smilie - and since I remembered that it could be an issue - explained why I did so. And the response was "so you did it just to annoy me".
You can't win. But I've been communicating online for a lot of decades and do try and indicate when I've gone off script and tried to crack a joke. Because textual communications are flawed because of said lack of clues to mindset and intention; which often are able to be expressed in direct contact through visual or vocal mannerisms.