He violated article #103 to be exact, the ban on the use of emoticons. I was completely unaware of the infraction until another bro in the office hit me up offline. There is an allowance for local variants of the code in each neighborhood or setting on a case-by-case basis. However, the canonical codebook is below. It's a real hoot.
The Bro Code
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.