My experience with reactions mirrors @Canapin - I didn’t like reactions until I liked them. same with emoji and hearts and the like (pun intended).
On the forum where I am admin, the demographic are mostly manly men guys who have explicitly reacted negatively to reactions and hate the heart like icon. so not only are reactions disabled but the heart is replaced by a thumbs up. that’s it. no other possible visual response to a post. I have tried to enable reactions twice at the request of some users but a very loud group of regular users won’t have them.