Are Emotes inherently toxic?

So it seems that these new emotes are supposed to be a way for players to express themselves. I thought it was pretty cool initially, but thinking on it I just don't see it working as intended. I want to constructively record my thoughts here so here we go.

I've liked the limitation of these emotes to mastery levels and events, but the idea of always having them in the game as actives just makes me think they are going to be used as taunts. With players being able to purchase and customize them to their liking whose to say that the emotes will be used for their intent purposes. Sure adding an option to mute them would be great so that players who are trying to focus or, like me, like the banter aspect of the game can opt out of the deal; however, what does that accomplish? Players can already limit the interactions with others in game by muting pings, chat, and all chat. Do we really need to implement another potentially fun add-on to the game just so players can mute it?

"Our number one goal is to give you a way to instantly express a wide range of emotions; if you’re playing Blitz, you should be able to show how you feel after a great hook, or a terrible hook, or when your ult passive steals farm from your AD."

Isn't that what the mastery system is for? Since it was implemented I have been proudly exploring different roles and champions to get my mastery score up to, currently, 517. I am one of "those" players that spam mastery emotes. It is the end all be all of "I played better than you, look how great I am." It can just be spammed and the enemy player/your teammates don't need to know why you are spamming it to get the gist of it. "You play a lot of 'insert champion' to the point you collected enough S ranks to secure level 7" etc. Sure I love the idea of being able to have a distinct emote for the situation, but at the same time I'd rather just keep playing the game then waste time with it.

The main complaint I've seen on this is that they are too childish. I agree on some aspects of it and disagree on others. You guys did this with Facebook stickers already. While I barely use them they are there and they can be whatever they want because my teammates aren't wasting their time playing with them and bm'ing the enemy team instead of focusing on the next move we can make. I don't think they are all that childish myself (I happen to like cute and child-like things...don't take that out of context) yet I don't really want them to bring out a more childish/casual player base. A lot of people have time dealing with immature players in norms and ranked alike. While we can let it slide in the case of normal games, ranked games are to be taken seriously while also being played for fun. At the end of the day it brings a more competitive player base and to me it looks like the people who do like emotes don't pay much attention to the games they are playing in the first place.

"Emotes should amplify game highlights. Baron steals, pentas, base races, narrow escapes, crazy outplays—emotes should be an exclamation point on League’s big moments. After your Penta, all eyes are on you, and it should be up to you if you want to play it cool or scream.

Again let me introduce you to the mastery system, but anyways. I like this overall idea of an emote for baron steals or taking out towers. Things made specifically for those big events, but I don't know what to think about these cute, light-hearted stickers being used for those. It just really adds an annoying layer to it that a lot of people are uncomfortable with. If they were more baseline emotes, not really stoic, but like prideful or generic then it would sort of take the fun out of it. At the same time I find that more fun for me. Very opinionated I know, but that's my reaction to them.

I am all for fun and I like the concept of giving players more ways to express themselves, but I don't see myself using these and I find them to be toxic just by default. At the end of the day giving players the power to express themselves means express what they want to show the world. In internet culture that means "show the world how big of an asshole you can be". I hope things work out, and I don't think there is any purpose to making this, but I just felt like I had to write it all down. Slow day. Now off to lose a solo queue match to a Garen who spins while spamming his joke animation.