Well that's not how any of this works. Connotations and subtext are a thing, particularly in the choice of including or not including a particular quote in a piece of journalism.

Yes it does, it says within the quote that the phrase was "popular" and is using the creation of a reacji as supporting evidence. The fact that an employee made a reacji of something does not mean it is popular. It takes a extremely low amount of effort from an extremely low amount of people (often, just one person) to create a custom reacji.

You can have a "popular" phrase in a company that's popular because people are making fun of it and the people that use it unironically.

But they put the effort to create it and others recollect it?