UX writing tone, of course, is only a tiny piece of the overall foreclosure of customization that the current era of UX designers is complicit in. I see a continuum between cutesy UX writing and reduced ability to customize any and all settings by the end user; You think there is an "actual war" separate from the propaganda used to manufacture consent for it. Gilded cages need gilt - that gold leaf takes the form of emojis etc.
Of course not, but I see that fact as an indicator of the collateral damage in the continued "War on General Computing" more than anything else. The customer is not always right - what they may want is to be infantilized, but what they need is to be educated.
I'd rather read overly technical language that assumes intelligence or curiosity on the part of the reader, rather than comforting euphemisms. When I was a kid I thought SimCity1993 really was "reticulating splines" during the loading screen and it didn't scare me off. Now Windows (which ought to be a lot less cheeky than Maxis) will print something like "We (who?) are just (just?) finishing some things (things?!) up for you"
What I really need is a browser extension that recognizes I'm on a recipe website and automatically scrolls past the recipe writer's whole autobiography to the section with the ingredients and instructions.
When I was getting my friend hired at the company I work at now, she asked "what is the workplace culture like?" I told her "There is none." Her response: "Oh thank God."