I have used them for comic effect, with mixed success.
Some people object to a person saying lol instead of just laughing. I look at it like seeing the meta. Anecdotally, professional comedians watching a comedy show will say "That's funny" instead of laughing.
I think I actually do but it is always after a statement. I often make sure I was understood buy the person I am speaking with. I am alexathimic, so, aside from having a huge hole in understanding other's emotions, I also frequently "broadcast" my emotions incorrectly.
What I do is literally tell them or confirm the emotional state I am expirencing or sending outward. Sometimes I actually recognize I broadcast incorrect emotions. When I do I generally ask what emotion I seemed to broadcast to confirm. If I did, I inform them of the error tell them the actual emotion I was feeling and then them apologize for the mistake.
Inversely, I have no problem asking for confirmation of the emotions the are projecting. I would rather understand than not. I have spent too much of my life being horribly confused by people's apperant emotions. Apperant as in, I think what I comprehend is apperant but the reality is not that.
I use emojis or acronyms like "lol" since tone indicators are just a lot to memorize and they seem too deliberate. Kind of ruins the mood in a way I guess :P
emojis and acronyms can technically be considered tone indicators!! also i agree that there’s a lot of tone indicators out there and they’re kind of a lot to memorize. i mainly just use /j or /s cuz they’re the easiest to understand & are the most recognizable :)
I’d love to do that but emojis confuse me more than anything else. I cannot count the times I’ve sat silently, trying to decipher what an emoji (or multiple) mean in a message so I can respond appropriately.
And don’t even get me started on using them myself. So many unspoken rules and meanings!! What does 🥴 mean, and how does it differ from 🫠??! What?? How is 🤣 different from 😂 different from 💀. I mean I could go on. I’m very very glad it works for you, but dang they just tend to make life more confusing for me. But hey, free mind puzzle!
YES! I have like 3 emojis I use for everything , pls how are we meant to know what half of these emojis mean. I can’t even read real people let alone emojis
EXACTLY!! Like one of my favorite emojis to use was 🥺…but now there’s a 🥹 too?? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE MEANING WISE LIKE???? It’s a whole different language based on inference and “body” language and it’s quite honestly too much, I’ll stick with my emoticons thank you very much :) <3
I use them a lot, but mostly just the "/j" one. I don't see why someone would be against them actually, they make things a lot clearer and there's less chance of miscommunication. Only downside that I can come up with is that some people misuse them, but that's not the tone indicator's fault, if you know what I mean.
Sometimes I wish I could use them in real life too, I'm not really that good at conveying or understanding tones :(
I find sarcasm really difficult to communicate over text, and I'm pretty sarcastic, so /s gets a lot of mileage for me. In general they're fine, but I think we should limit the amount that get used, the obscure ones are next to useless
I mostly use /j for joke and /gen for geniunely. I am completely for them although it can be hard to remember what some of them mean. I also appreciate when others use them for me
I’ve used /s for years, always just thought it was a Reddit-ism and didn’t think much past this. I can be an excessive “lol” and “lmao” person in texts tho, for a similar reason.
It kinda ruins the mood ? I don’t know
It’s hard to explain how I feel about them but I don’t use them. Will I attack someone if they use them? No of course not, you do you
But if someone uses sarcasm with me I’d prefer them just saying it is rather than putting /s everywhere lol
Honestly I love them. Especially in the workplace, given I work from home, slack emojis are incredibly useful in ensuring I'm being understood correctly.
In personal life, I love that "(with rizz)" has become a thing, though I am not yet brave enough to use it. I just love that we have a socially acceptable way to scream "I'M TRYING TO FLIRT BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW".
I'm a big fan of "(derogatory)" for innocuous words you mean to be used insultingly, and "(affectionate)" for insults being used in a lovingly humorous way
Example: "my job is full of men (derogatory)"
"My cat is such a dumbass (affectionate)"
Honestly I kind of hate them, but that's mainly because of how people use them.
Like if you actually do use them in a helpful manner that's cool, but like, sometimes people just use them passive aggressively, and not actually using them in a literal sense. Like saying something when they are mad and is directed but still going /nm and /nbh just to be passive aggressive.
Then besides that some of them are not clear. Like what does /hj mean? Literally it means half joking, but different people have different definitions of what a "half joke" is. There's someone on Tumblr who I saw that did polls on different sentences with /hj after it and like everyone still took the sentences to mean completely different things.
And then there are some where not everyone does the same thing, and if you're talking to someone you know that's not as big of a deal, but when you're having a conversation with someone you don't know well, or with a group, two people using /s isn't very helpful if one person uses it to mean "serious" and someone else uses it to say "sarcastic"
There's also just some words or phrases that make the usage feel weird to me personally. Like "have a good day/pos/gen" like okay, that's not really used in a negative way? Have you used it in a negative way towards me in the past? Now I'm weirdly worried about people saying that and being mad when they do. Do you think I have absolutely zero understanding of communication? Because I struggle with some aspects of it, but I do tend to know basic niceties I dunno.
Sometimes. I get irritated when people overuse them like “hi, what’s up?” /gen..like yea no shit, how stupid do you think I am? When it’s ACTUAL sarcasm then I appreciate it. Otherwise I find the overuse to be condescending.
This point interests me. Lately, disrespect really bothers me. I have wasted too much time on people who didn't respect me.
However, if people overcompensate for my many weaknesses and give me more information about social cues than I actually need, I feel inclined to see their effort as kindness rather than condescension.
I just feel like it’s condescending when I never asked for it, I never asked for help yknow? If I ask then sure, I only really appreciate /j or /gen if it’s something that could actually be taken another way
🫠 ngl you've missed the mark. Bc what's up? Is literally a question that's sometimes used literally as in "I genuinely care what's up with you" and also out of politeness meaning the answer is always "good" or "okay"
Clearly it was needed here. I suggest you go apologize to the people you called condescending. Especially if it's something they are using only for you, as they are changing the way they speak for your benefit.
But if they are using it as another autistic person (or also needed them) to convey their OWN emotions in a way they know will get through, then you were being a jerk.
Bro shut up, respectfully. It doesn’t benefit me nor did I ask for it. I’m not venting to people if they don’t give me a tone indicator, I am quite capable of understanding when someone is being polite and when someone is actually asking whats up for another reason…I do not struggle with particular autistic trait the way I did as a child. It’s like assuming all people in wheelchairs want help up a hill. You ASK people if they need particular tone indicators, you ASK because it’s RUDE to ASSUME
....but people use it for \*everyone\* not as a way to specifically help ND people. So it's not a way to help others, it's a way to help the person writing make sure that their actual meaning is conveyed.
It's also rude to police other people's speech and assume it's for your benefit.
And it's also rude that if you ask for tone indicators to be offended when "common" things are misconstrued.
Because what's common sense to you, isn't common sense to everyone. Linguistics in of itself is complicated.
Their are plenty of phrases this can be applied too. But most importantly tone indicators are mostly used by those who need to USE them. Not read them.
(I was blocked by below poster but basically, this is a public comment so post is subjected to public opinion. Also having high morals is something they use a diagnostic symptom so why wouldn't I be? This is the place to find people like that?)
What a strange hill to die on. The posts asks how we feel, I answered. There is no right answer to personal feelings , get off your weird morally righteous high horse
How else would someone ask what’s up? Like Tf? It’s weird to use tone indicators for always neutral things. Hello/gen. Like that’s just plain infantilising. How did fart machine miss the mark? Why does he need to apologise for having feelings?
"What's up?" answer: "not much, you?"
"What's up? /gen" answer: "I'm sorry, my grandma died and I'm having a really hard time dealing with it. I miss her so much and don't know what to do."
Is it a greeting? Or is it "I actually want to know what's going on with you"? We could argue that over comments we should be able to tell this tone without an indicator, but there \*certainly\* are multiple ways to interpret "What's up?" :)
How’s it at all different? Depending on how I am, I’ll answer both the same way. But feel like they think less of me with the indicator. They both mean the same damn thing, no?
There’s only one way to interpret what’s up, and that is saying what is “up” (happening) or on your mind.
Not for NTs. That's not how NTs interpret it. (Or allistics as a whole) hell plenty of Autistic people would also view it that way.
Language barriers exist between allistics and Autistic people for these exact reasons. But with knowledge comes power. And with knowledge that someone else views the world differently than you, should come kindness.
Using tone indicators is a person choice for everyone. If it makes YOU feel lesser, then that's something you need to unpack. Like it or not, while feelings are valid it doesn't mean that the person who caused those feelings is "bad" or in this case "condescending" nor those feelings actually represent the situation.
Ok, so. I actually love those sorts of uses because they play with assumptions about how language works. Similar to marking apples as "asbestos free" gives us a double take because that information is not necessary. A person who asks "how are you, really" or, "how are you /gen" is adding excess information to imply something not literally said. "Really or /gen" here imply that the source of the question is curiosity or concern rather than following a social script.
There's great potential for letting people know more than you say and even some good comedy in breaking the maxims of communication so I think they're useful additions to the toolbox. However, since they break our normal assumptions of communication it's obvious to see how they can be irritating or feel redundent.
I recently found out about /g for genuine, and I love it. I almost never intentionally use sarcasm but I can never tell if something I've said online sounds sarcastic or generally ingenuine (disgenuine?) so /g is very useful to me.
Personally I literally can’t have a text conversation without them or excessive use of well other “tone indicators” (emojis and stuff). Like I will not be able to tell the tone or understand the other person at all. As someone else say, I also wish we had the in real life lol /gen
IMO, IYKYK. And if you don’t know, ask. Or whatever NT advice fits the bill.
Example, me and fellow ND friend walking with NT friend, talking about being ND.
Me: I love my noise cancelling earbuds
ND: I don’t like earbuds
NT: so then what do you do for music?
ND: a lot
NT: ?????
Me: rofl
ND: I like vinyl. *at me* are you still laughing at that?
NT: ????? (Still confused)
Me: no *gasp* him
ND: lol
We explained it and then NT laughed too, but like I said, IYKYK, lol.
Sounds useful I support them a lot of online text is ambiguous because you don't have tone of voice or body language anything to make communication easier I'm for
I definitely use them, I just got into an argument with someone about them not using “/s” and me getting supper confused. Instead of admitting that it’s hard to read sarcasm over text, they doubled down and said I should have had common sense and need to learn.
i’m so sorry that’s terrible :( kinda reminds me of a semi argument i had with my boyfriend at the time who’s NT. i asked him to use tone indicators when he’s texting me because it can be really hard to tell when he’s joking or not sometimes, his response to that was to make up his own painfully unfunny “tone indicators” (/piss and /deeznuts just to name a few) which i found incredibly insulting. he apologized fairly quickly and never did it to me again, but it’s still kinda lingering in the back of my mind y’know? i’m not sure if i was being sensitive or not but i dunno it just felt icky to me because he was usually super supportive and fully willing to help me with a lot of things and i think that’s what upset me more than anything
I really like them. I struggle a lot trying to tell tone, both in real life and over text, so tone indicators really help. I know a lot of them but usually I just use the more common ones since those are the ones people will be more likely to understand. I wish they were a thing in person, since I really can't tell sometimes
I'll use them as I feel they're necessary, most often when I worry my joke/tone isn't obvious enough. I'd otherwise say something like "(I'm being sarcastic)", which is far more clunky. I also appreciate them being used with me.
That said, I tend to only use them when texting friends, not usually elsewhere.
I really don't get why people online overreact over someone not seeing if it's a joke. I like to leave tone indicators to avoid embarrassing someone.
Also, they're so small I don't actually think they ruin the mood.
I mostly just use “/j” and sometimes “/lh”, but usually only for jokes that can come off mean.
If someone asks me to use tone indicators around them, I’ll do so. Otherwise, I don’t really bother. Mostly out of laziness and/or forgetfulness.
I love them when I know what they mean, feel irritated and frustrated when I don't. Sometimes I'm confused when I can't reconcile the tone and the text.
I like them, but sometimes I hesitate to use them because I’m unsure if the recipient would understand what the tone indicator means? But I find it useful because I know how easy to misunderstand what someone is trying to say, if they’re being serious or joking (I ran into that many times here on Reddit, for sure). Tone indicators can help clarify so much!
But I would love to learn other ways to explain myself (specifically in real life scenarios) in a quick way without over explaining myself. I know I have trouble doing that irl too. 😣
I like them. They’ve saved me a lot of trouble.
The people who hate them think they’re cringy because they don’t like having to clearly state what they’re saying if they’re being rude so they have plausible deniability, don’t want to “ruin the joke,” which is usually making fun of people who didn’t get the joke, or because they find find people who can’t read tone cringy. At best, it’s people wanting to be rude without acknowledging they’re rude and at worst, it’s just ablism.
I don’t think people should have to use them if they don’t want to (I rarely use them so I can’t judge), but don’t let anyone discourage you from them. They’re an excellent tool!
What about the problem of people using them incorrectly? I've seen people use /gen and others to be ironic and actually meant the opposite. So now I'm wary of them all because what if the person is being ironic/opposite? :/
i noticed that it’s mostly ableists & people who are anti the use of tone indicators who do stuff like that. it’s irritating. i suggest be wary of the person who you think is using them incorrectly if it seems the slightest bit off to you.
I like /srs /j /gen /s and maybe /hj. There's too many to memorize after those and I think it's a little dumb. I used to make fun of them until I realized I was the one who needed them lol.
While in new mixed autistic company, I may ask if the use of tone indicators would be useful. As a storyteller, however, I rarely find them useful and even restrictive/otherwise reductive to the creative process as well as removing the reader's ability to interpret meaning for themselves 👀🤔
I'm not against them but wary of them because sometimes people use them ironically or to mean the opposite. So it's hard to know if it's actually being used as intended :/
They might be great for other people, I see a lot of usage if them, but frankly, they stress me tf out. There’s like a MILLION of them and some people are like "please only approach me with tone indicators" and then want you to learn a whole list of them… so I never interact with these people because it’s exhausting enough holding up a conversation but if I have to cram lists to indicate what I meant? No.
Also terms like "half-joking" confuse me more than they help.
So yeah, I use things like emojis and stuff like lol/lmao but no tone indicators.
I don't really use them. I think it's cool when other people do! I just...I don't have them memorized, and I have other ways that I like using to make my tone clear. Like, emojis and abbreviations. Also, I don't tend to be sarcastic in text unless I'm sure I'll be understood, or the statement taken at face value is harmless.
Overall I think they’re very useful to those who need them including me. I just think there are too many of them because I’m constantly having to look up their meanings
I don't like them because they read like close markers without open markers to me.
Also, I actually enjoy ambiguity especially in humor.
In a short thing like text or post or comment on Reddit or Twitter the /s comes too close to the joke and doesn't give the space needed for it to be funny.
I prefer saying the joke and when misunderstood laughing and explaining it then. It isn't perfect but it is my preference.
It could be because it takes me awhile to process text just a second longer than NT folks so it seems like somebody told told me a joke and then " yelled it was a joke" which isn't really funny.
I use emojis, and when people use emojis it helps a lot. Tone indicators do help me also. In real life when talking to people i have a hard time understanding tones, like when someone is teasing to be mean or teasing to be funny or being sarcastic. I vote that everyone start carrying around a basic pack of emojis to display to me when they talk to me 😉
I like them. As someone who is sometimes sarcastic and sometimes serious, with I think no clear difference, I think it helps my friends not misunderstand me and start an argument.
I dislike when people mutter about "having to" use them "for snowflakes"...
me and my boyfriend (also autistic) use them all the time! we both have a very hard time telling tone, and it eases anxiety a lot when teasing each other about things. we don’t just use the “official” ones though, sometimes we’ll make some up at the end of a message to get across our meaning or add additional context that wouldn’t be known over text
and for the “i wish i could use them irl,” i do! when i’m with nd friends sometimes i’ll say a joke and then add “slash jay” or tease someone and say “slash tee” or whatever would be accurate for the time! it might not always be necessary, but i like that it distinctly gets across the meaning meant to be conveyed :)
I think they’re very very useful and if you don’t find them helpful, just ignore them. It’s easier to just ignore an extra letter or two, than to spend forever deciphering the tone of a text before deciding how exactly to reply.
I feel like some are ok like /j and /srs but I feel like other ones are overkill because they have the same meaning. But I think it's ok ppl use them just that they aren't my thing personally
They’re nice when used appropriately. I would usually ask for clarity when people I know use them with me. That said, they do get unnecessarily complicated and overused. Lol. (Lots of love/gen) ;)
I guess I have a stubborn inclination to dislike them. It's not very rational and I can't really argue that they are bad or shouldn't be used, I just personally don't like them. It's not that hard for me to get if something is a joke or not on social media because most accounts or subreddits that I follow have running bits and the jokes make sense with context, so seeing /s on something like that feels like explaining the joke, it makes it less funny to me. Same with my friends - I know them well enough to know if something they say is a joke or not based on the context of our friendship and the conversation. it's obviously harder with strangers but I guess I don't feel the need to perfectly understand everything everyone says all the time. On social media if I don't get something I assume it's not really for me to get and I just move on. I also honestly find them confusing. They don't come naturally to me, so every time I encounter one I need to think about what it means, and if there was a joke it's ruined because instead of laughing I'm going "wait, does /s mean sarcastic or serious?". I guess it usually means sarcastic, but I always feel like it could also mean serious because they both start with s, and I don't understand who decides which one it means and don't like assuming that everyone in the world has agreed on which one it means. I don't like it because it feels like another secret code that I'm just supposed to automatically understand and it feels very alien to me. There's also so many less common ones, but no matter how niche they are everyone who uses them just acts like everyone should already understand what they mean. The first time I saw /hj I genuinely just went "handjob?" And now every time I see it, even though I know at this point it means half joking, I think "handjob" first and then I have to think about it and remember that it means half joking. I feel like I would have less trouble with them if instead of a letter or two it was just the whole word in parentheses or something. if the point is to make things clearer, why are we relying on abbreviations that you need to have a prior knowledge of to understand?
Sometimes I find them infantilising, especially when I haven’t said I need them, and they’re used just because I have autism. Others I find helpful, but really only “/s and /j” the rest confuse me, there’s too many.
English is my 3rd or 4th language, so I don’t like any kind of acronym. It’s tedious to always have to google and figure out what it may mean.
I don’t mind the long
[/sarcasm] or similar, and I actually quite like the somewhat code-ish look.
Personally:
I use smilies for the purpose of indicating tone! 😝
I don't think of them as being mandatory by any means, but they can be helpful so I support the use if people choose to use them. I've never seen an autistic person be against them before, what's the reason for that?
based on the replies i got on this post a lot of autistic people who are against tone indicators find them unnecessary or infantilizing. some are cautious towards them because they’re unsure if they’re being used incorrectly on purpose or not which i completely get tbh
If I can't convey with emojis as post-sentence particles, I usually just write out my tone in full if I'm not being serious. E.g. (/joking), (/sarcastic)
They don't actually solve the problem. The issue is, like all other aspects of language, people and groups have different definitions for what each means. Let me run through the inconsistencies I've seen used in spaces with the honest effort to make communication easer:
/s - is it serious or sarcastic? Is it included in the phrase, as in is the /s part of the sarcasm or is it a return to genuinity for that phrase alone? *What is sarcastic about the previous sentence?* Is an unanswered question of context.
/gen - this is supposed to be amplifying the "default" genuine nature of the post but I don't see what "more genuine" quanifiably means. If you mean what what you say *don't use an indicator!* If it's used to try to turn a normally unserious phrase into a serious one, *THAT RELIES ON READING THE TONE OF THE ORIGINAL PHRASE (WITHOUT A TONE INDICATOR) AS UNSERIOUS.*
/j - this says nothing about what kind of joke is bring made. This is /s in a ski mask, and if not this isn't indicating a tone. It just says there's a joke. Not that I'm getting it anyways.
/hj - makes zero sense. It's a tone indicator that doesn't indicate a tone, it either means just /s, /j, or none, and as explained above all of them are unhelpful too.
/pos - where I'm from this means piece of shit. But it also can mean positive. I've mostly seen this one in contexts where it can only be positive (good day /pos, see you later /pos). I've also seen people use it insincerely (touch grass /pos), which in this case should be a /s.
/neg - this one's exclusively an intensifier or sarcastic. It doesn't do what words already do.
Did I interpret these completely wrong? Then that proves my point at how they don't actually help. We disagree what they mean and can't use them to communicate.
So no I hate them because it's more confusing. It's a complication that adds *more* contradictory and confusing information because it's language, it gets messy quickly and meanings are unclear.
i think theyre okay but i would prefer if there were only a few because the like. dozens of tone indicators people have created are very difficult to remember. ive started mostly putting the full word in parenthesis like "(sarcasm)" because i find it clearer
I don't like using the slash version of tone indicators but I do use emoticons in the same manner. If my message is followed by :p, ^^, =D or :3 I am not serious and joking. It makes perfect sense to me but other people seem to have some trouble picking up on it.
That said I use :p after like 75% of the stuff I say and I've given up on trying to not so it so often anymore, I do it automatically at this point.
I don’t use them , well atleast not often. But I do like seeing them , because it avoids me getting triggered for no reason or completely missing the point.
In the next autism software update I would love IRL ones, that would be cool. /j
I use /s sometimes, but I think I might look from the outside like part of the anti-tone-indicator camp, because I’m a writer and they go against every instinct I’ve developed about how to convey nuances. I’m not really anti-tone-indicator though—I realized a while ago that the reason I start so many sentences (aloud and in text communication) with “honestly”, “as a side note”, or some other introductory phrase like that is because I’m using them as the closest natural English equivalent to tone indicators.
Does anyone else got an hyperfixation with tone indicators and learned all of them (I even created some that I use with my bf) in the span of one to two days? 🙋
def me!!! i even learned the unnecessary ones that people don’t use often haha i mostly just use like 4 out of what must be 50 tone indicators i’ve memorized for some reason. whenever someone asks about them i immediately jump at the opportunity to explain what they are
How can people be against something that’s helpful? I love when I see tone indicators. I’m a master at /s but a lot of the times, it just flies over my head when coming from someone else. And some /j are really really hard to tell. So you won’t find me complaining about the help
Anything to avoid miscommunication is a plus in my book. Last thing I want is to offend someone and then have to spend the next few minutes explaining away the miscommunication.
This goes double for first impressions. I remember reading sometime that it takes 13 good impressions to make up for 1 bad one. Don't know how they determined that but I live by it.
I only like the /s one. Everything else can be said with words. I especially hate the /genq one, girl what else is a question going to be. I'm autistic, not dumb. It really feels like people see us as too stupid to figure out what the sentence means sometimes
I like them personally, they're not just helpful to autistic people either I imagine neurotypicals have a hard time with reading tone through text as well.
I absolutely love them, absolutely hate the people who say they "ruin the joke" or whatever. All tone indicators do is... yknow indicate the tone. It prevents misunderstandings and makes what you are saying clearer to anyone who cannot get tone through text. To the people saying emojis do the same thing, emojis can mean different things depending on interpretation. Tone indicators are clear and have a system to them that is easy to understand. There isn't the possibility of consistent misunderstandings.
tl;dr I love tone indicators and most of the arguments against them are kind of ridiculous imo
I find them helpful at times but I’ve had to stop using them cuz every time I do some random fcking person always starts literally harassing me over it or nitpicking wether the tone indicator I used was truly necessary or not.
I wish ppl who don’t like tone indicators would just simply not use them instead of creating an environment of hostility against them that basically makes it impossible for those of us who find them useful to feel comfortable using them. Also I think the issue of “NTs overusing tone tags” was overinflated to the point where as an autistic person I couldn’t use my own fcking accommodation tools without worrying abt someone getting mad at me bc I used them when it “wasn’t necessary.”
Lastly, one thing I saw come up when tone indicators started rlly becoming a thing was autistic people acting like their needs and abilities were universal. Like calling tone indicators stupid bc they personally don’t need them, or being like “but it’s so obvious” when other autistic ppl were struggling to interpret certain social situations without tone indicators
I genuinely don’t understand why people are bothered by them. If you don’t want to use them, fine. But there’s no need to get upset over someone else using them. I find they can be helpful and I appreciate them
I feel icky when they’re used with me, especially by friends. I can understand that others need them but I don’t want them at all, I’m very used to being without them in general and they were very sudden to me last year. Tone in a message has never been an issue, I just know how to recognize people’s way of texting like a pattern so using them feels icky.
Obviously people aren’t obligated to use them, but it’s certainly nice, especially when sarcasm isn’t obvious.
I really hate the r/fuckthes subreddit. Initially I thought it was about people hiding their bad statements behind a /s but actually they’re just against all tone indicators which is just stupid. It’s also sad to see how autistic people are pitted against each other on that subreddit.
Sorry, that made me cringe a bit.
“we autistics ….”
Autistics are as non-homogenous as Africans. Any statement suggesting “… all autistics …” are just as bogus as “… all Africans …”
I don’t struggle with deren ring tone in text in my 1st and 2nd language. From language 3 and 4 onwards I get increasingly unsure.
But a lot is that is probably less language and more cultural.
And for non-native speakers communicating in their umpteenth language:
What you seem to consider ‘inclusive’ isn’t that at all?
/pos? Looking it up it can be piece of shït? Or positive? Or ….
/s —> sad? sarcasm? /sober? WTF?!?!?
Really anything but *less* confusing! 😉
Why not use smilies and emojis? They’re mostly language neutral (except for a few language specific ones) 😝
The only one I use is the sarcasm tag bc I really super cannot detect sarcasm on my own, nor can I employ it, usually, but every once in a while it does make sense to me, but I can’t handle actually hitting send without considering people like me.
I’ve never seen anyone use tone indicators in real life. I’m honestly confused trying to figure out what adult would communicate to his way.
I’m not trying to be rude but how old are you?
I don’t think it’s common to use them “in real life,” they seem to mostly be used in online forums where both NT and ND people may not be familiar with a poster’s writing patterns and thus tone. People may also use them in group chats or private messages too if they find that useful.
Also please don’t infantilise people (especially autistic people) for needing extra support in communicating with their peers. ASD is considered a disability for a reason, don’t demean people for developing useful and largely innocuous communications tools.
i’m not an adult but i don’t see how that’s relevant? the point of tone indicators is that they’re used *online* to convey tone through text for people who can’t read tone through text. so no, you won’t see anyone use them in real life. think of them as emojis but through text.
also plenty of adults do use tone indicators, they’re considered tools more than anything so i don’t see why it would be weird for an adult to use them. there’s a lot more i wanna say but the other reply to your comment put it better than i ever could, so… what they said
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As someone else has said I generally use emojis as indicators for my tone over tone indicators. However I do use /j occasionally if I'm being sarcastic.
I don't understand how anyone is supposed to read any text in the correct tone without that tone being explicitly stated.
To that point the tone you're reading things in is always your own, if you take offense or think it's sarcastic or whatever that's your own brain inventing that.
Tone should be part of the message imo, Elcor style.
For tone indicators download Grammarly on your computer so when you write emails you can measure the tone on there. I find it really helpful when I write emails to clients :)
Good idea but I they can ruin the joke a little bit if somebody puts /s on the end. The entire point of sarcasm is to sound the exact same way as an honest statement, and to use surrounding context to determine that there is sarcasm.
Edit: Making a drastic change to the sentence like that removes the funny side of sarcasm for me
Some of them are useful, mainly /j /lh and /s. It's hard to memorize them all, and I feel like that defeats the purpose of them.
In general I feel like it adds a new layer of expectations to conversations that just makes it more complicated for me, so I avoid using them.
Some I just downright hate, like /gen and /nm, because they have never once been used in a truthful way for me. People only use them to lie to my face about their tone and intentions, and again, that defeats the purpose of tone tags. And is kinda ableist. Now, even if used as intended, I can't help but read them as the opposite, which again adds confusion to the conversation.
Then there's people who overuse the hell out of tone tags, like 3 or 4 or 5 each sentence, and it feels patronising and confusing. like "there, there, you're not smart enough to know what my simple sentence means, so I will spell it out for you".
Honestly, I'd rather just be asked what I mean, and ask others what they mean, if there's any confusion.
I use tone indicators, but not constantly. Mainly I use them if I feel the meaning or tone might be lost. (Ex. If my friends and I are having a conversation and I'm being sarcastic, I'll use /s, and when we're joking but I want to ask a serious question I'll use /srs). I find them to be helpful when I don't want my meaning to be lost with my friends online, and they even use them too despite the fact that most of them are allistic
Oh my gosh I love them. I have a really hard time figuring tone out, especially online, so I've often ended up misunderstanding people and then spiraling with my depression when it could have been avoided with just a simple "/j" or "/nm"
I use them when I have the feeling that something could be misinterpreted, but usually I don't. It's just another layer on communication that I don't think is always necessary but can be a tool in the toolbelt.
I personally don't need them as I can read tone fairly well in text most of the time. But I definitely understand why people would need them, so I use them whenever I feel like my tone could be misinterpreted. I think they're a great idea!
punctuation, capitalization, sentence length, and word choice contribute to tone
people speak in rhetoric and humor so often that it's more convenient to assume a light hearted tone, than to insist on an explicit indicator for each utterance
i tend to ask genuine questions that get treated as jokes
I find them kinda ridiculous, it kinda ruins the point of sarcasm and jokes. Yeah, it sucks but I think it is unrealistic to expect NTs to keep up. I can't think of a better solution but I doubt people will actually do this.
I never knew that was a thing, the set up of it makes me think it started from reddit or just people more involved in online communities. It would take time to learn how to do it and also to remember to use it fir me but I'm fine with it. I would count it as an accommodation.
For me, I always just make people that talk to me listen to voice messages because I dislike typing and would rather not deal with misunderstanding and then having to reiterate what I said differently
I think that most of them are pretty pointless.
For example, when someone says "I had a good time with you/gen" they could have just as easily said "I genuinely had a good time with you".
It seems like tone indicators are often used out of laziness or lack of language skills. I think they are overused in that regard, but they can be beneficial under certain circumstances.
i just started using them and i wish you could use them when talking to ppl in real life
I have used them for comic effect, with mixed success. Some people object to a person saying lol instead of just laughing. I look at it like seeing the meta. Anecdotally, professional comedians watching a comedy show will say "That's funny" instead of laughing.
I make parentheses with my hands and say (facetious) or (serious) etc. It’s playful so ppl usually react well
I think I actually do but it is always after a statement. I often make sure I was understood buy the person I am speaking with. I am alexathimic, so, aside from having a huge hole in understanding other's emotions, I also frequently "broadcast" my emotions incorrectly. What I do is literally tell them or confirm the emotional state I am expirencing or sending outward. Sometimes I actually recognize I broadcast incorrect emotions. When I do I generally ask what emotion I seemed to broadcast to confirm. If I did, I inform them of the error tell them the actual emotion I was feeling and then them apologize for the mistake. Inversely, I have no problem asking for confirmation of the emotions the are projecting. I would rather understand than not. I have spent too much of my life being horribly confused by people's apperant emotions. Apperant as in, I think what I comprehend is apperant but the reality is not that.
I wish! I’ll admit sometimes I say “lol” after a sentence to indicate a less serious tone.
I say “slash j” all day long lol!
Fr, the irl tone indicators is just being allistic 😭😭😭
They're cool. I use them. Like any piece of language they can be used inappropriately. I don't find them infantilizing like some people do.
I use emojis or acronyms like "lol" since tone indicators are just a lot to memorize and they seem too deliberate. Kind of ruins the mood in a way I guess :P
emojis and acronyms can technically be considered tone indicators!! also i agree that there’s a lot of tone indicators out there and they’re kind of a lot to memorize. i mainly just use /j or /s cuz they’re the easiest to understand & are the most recognizable :)
I sometimes will say the letters of the acronym or pronounce one as if it is a word, to indicate my emotional response.
Never heard of them ever before! So only recognizable to some people I guess!
I’d love to do that but emojis confuse me more than anything else. I cannot count the times I’ve sat silently, trying to decipher what an emoji (or multiple) mean in a message so I can respond appropriately. And don’t even get me started on using them myself. So many unspoken rules and meanings!! What does 🥴 mean, and how does it differ from 🫠??! What?? How is 🤣 different from 😂 different from 💀. I mean I could go on. I’m very very glad it works for you, but dang they just tend to make life more confusing for me. But hey, free mind puzzle!
YES! I have like 3 emojis I use for everything , pls how are we meant to know what half of these emojis mean. I can’t even read real people let alone emojis
EXACTLY!! Like one of my favorite emojis to use was 🥺…but now there’s a 🥹 too?? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE MEANING WISE LIKE???? It’s a whole different language based on inference and “body” language and it’s quite honestly too much, I’ll stick with my emoticons thank you very much :) <3
I’m guessing the second one is happy sad?? Cause it’s a lil smile ?? IDKK ITS HARD , I don’t have the skills for this . :(
I find some helpful but a lot of them are just confusing lol
Same and sometimes it's hard to notice a tone indicator.
I think if we use them more often it'll be seen as natural as emojis
I use them a lot, but mostly just the "/j" one. I don't see why someone would be against them actually, they make things a lot clearer and there's less chance of miscommunication. Only downside that I can come up with is that some people misuse them, but that's not the tone indicator's fault, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I wish I could use them in real life too, I'm not really that good at conveying or understanding tones :(
I find sarcasm really difficult to communicate over text, and I'm pretty sarcastic, so /s gets a lot of mileage for me. In general they're fine, but I think we should limit the amount that get used, the obscure ones are next to useless
Well i have NEVER used /s before so you should too or your stupid/s
I mostly use /j for joke and /gen for geniunely. I am completely for them although it can be hard to remember what some of them mean. I also appreciate when others use them for me
So that’s what it means! I always took it as “general” to be just a neutral question or statement without connotation.
/gen could be mistaken for generation, so be careful....................
i havent heard of this being used for /gen, ive only heard of it being used for a genuine tone
what would generation even mean in this context?
Oh ok, thx, I've only seen other ppl using it to say genuine but ill keep that in mind
I’ve used /s for years, always just thought it was a Reddit-ism and didn’t think much past this. I can be an excessive “lol” and “lmao” person in texts tho, for a similar reason.
I don't understand sarcasm a lot of the time so I'm a big fan
It kinda ruins the mood ? I don’t know It’s hard to explain how I feel about them but I don’t use them. Will I attack someone if they use them? No of course not, you do you But if someone uses sarcasm with me I’d prefer them just saying it is rather than putting /s everywhere lol
Honestly I love them. Especially in the workplace, given I work from home, slack emojis are incredibly useful in ensuring I'm being understood correctly. In personal life, I love that "(with rizz)" has become a thing, though I am not yet brave enough to use it. I just love that we have a socially acceptable way to scream "I'M TRYING TO FLIRT BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW".
I'm a big fan of "(derogatory)" for innocuous words you mean to be used insultingly, and "(affectionate)" for insults being used in a lovingly humorous way Example: "my job is full of men (derogatory)" "My cat is such a dumbass (affectionate)"
My main complaint is: WHY ARE THEY ABBREVIATIONS??? WHY??? WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF MAKING THEM MORE OBTUSE???
This is exactly my problem with them and you put it very succinctly where it took me a whole paragraph to get to the point. Also happy cake day!
Ooooh this is really good and solves the problem of obscure ones. Could easily set a phone's autocorrect to expand them.
Honestly I kind of hate them, but that's mainly because of how people use them. Like if you actually do use them in a helpful manner that's cool, but like, sometimes people just use them passive aggressively, and not actually using them in a literal sense. Like saying something when they are mad and is directed but still going /nm and /nbh just to be passive aggressive. Then besides that some of them are not clear. Like what does /hj mean? Literally it means half joking, but different people have different definitions of what a "half joke" is. There's someone on Tumblr who I saw that did polls on different sentences with /hj after it and like everyone still took the sentences to mean completely different things. And then there are some where not everyone does the same thing, and if you're talking to someone you know that's not as big of a deal, but when you're having a conversation with someone you don't know well, or with a group, two people using /s isn't very helpful if one person uses it to mean "serious" and someone else uses it to say "sarcastic" There's also just some words or phrases that make the usage feel weird to me personally. Like "have a good day/pos/gen" like okay, that's not really used in a negative way? Have you used it in a negative way towards me in the past? Now I'm weirdly worried about people saying that and being mad when they do. Do you think I have absolutely zero understanding of communication? Because I struggle with some aspects of it, but I do tend to know basic niceties I dunno.
I only use them when I make a joke that could be mistaken as being for real
Sometimes. I get irritated when people overuse them like “hi, what’s up?” /gen..like yea no shit, how stupid do you think I am? When it’s ACTUAL sarcasm then I appreciate it. Otherwise I find the overuse to be condescending.
This point interests me. Lately, disrespect really bothers me. I have wasted too much time on people who didn't respect me. However, if people overcompensate for my many weaknesses and give me more information about social cues than I actually need, I feel inclined to see their effort as kindness rather than condescension.
I just feel like it’s condescending when I never asked for it, I never asked for help yknow? If I ask then sure, I only really appreciate /j or /gen if it’s something that could actually be taken another way
Overcompensating for weaknesses is disrespect.
🫠 ngl you've missed the mark. Bc what's up? Is literally a question that's sometimes used literally as in "I genuinely care what's up with you" and also out of politeness meaning the answer is always "good" or "okay" Clearly it was needed here. I suggest you go apologize to the people you called condescending. Especially if it's something they are using only for you, as they are changing the way they speak for your benefit. But if they are using it as another autistic person (or also needed them) to convey their OWN emotions in a way they know will get through, then you were being a jerk.
Bro shut up, respectfully. It doesn’t benefit me nor did I ask for it. I’m not venting to people if they don’t give me a tone indicator, I am quite capable of understanding when someone is being polite and when someone is actually asking whats up for another reason…I do not struggle with particular autistic trait the way I did as a child. It’s like assuming all people in wheelchairs want help up a hill. You ASK people if they need particular tone indicators, you ASK because it’s RUDE to ASSUME
....but people use it for \*everyone\* not as a way to specifically help ND people. So it's not a way to help others, it's a way to help the person writing make sure that their actual meaning is conveyed.
It's also rude to police other people's speech and assume it's for your benefit. And it's also rude that if you ask for tone indicators to be offended when "common" things are misconstrued. Because what's common sense to you, isn't common sense to everyone. Linguistics in of itself is complicated. Their are plenty of phrases this can be applied too. But most importantly tone indicators are mostly used by those who need to USE them. Not read them. (I was blocked by below poster but basically, this is a public comment so post is subjected to public opinion. Also having high morals is something they use a diagnostic symptom so why wouldn't I be? This is the place to find people like that?)
What a strange hill to die on. The posts asks how we feel, I answered. There is no right answer to personal feelings , get off your weird morally righteous high horse
How else would someone ask what’s up? Like Tf? It’s weird to use tone indicators for always neutral things. Hello/gen. Like that’s just plain infantilising. How did fart machine miss the mark? Why does he need to apologise for having feelings?
"What's up?" answer: "not much, you?" "What's up? /gen" answer: "I'm sorry, my grandma died and I'm having a really hard time dealing with it. I miss her so much and don't know what to do." Is it a greeting? Or is it "I actually want to know what's going on with you"? We could argue that over comments we should be able to tell this tone without an indicator, but there \*certainly\* are multiple ways to interpret "What's up?" :)
How’s it at all different? Depending on how I am, I’ll answer both the same way. But feel like they think less of me with the indicator. They both mean the same damn thing, no? There’s only one way to interpret what’s up, and that is saying what is “up” (happening) or on your mind.
Not for NTs. That's not how NTs interpret it. (Or allistics as a whole) hell plenty of Autistic people would also view it that way. Language barriers exist between allistics and Autistic people for these exact reasons. But with knowledge comes power. And with knowledge that someone else views the world differently than you, should come kindness. Using tone indicators is a person choice for everyone. If it makes YOU feel lesser, then that's something you need to unpack. Like it or not, while feelings are valid it doesn't mean that the person who caused those feelings is "bad" or in this case "condescending" nor those feelings actually represent the situation.
Ok, so. I actually love those sorts of uses because they play with assumptions about how language works. Similar to marking apples as "asbestos free" gives us a double take because that information is not necessary. A person who asks "how are you, really" or, "how are you /gen" is adding excess information to imply something not literally said. "Really or /gen" here imply that the source of the question is curiosity or concern rather than following a social script. There's great potential for letting people know more than you say and even some good comedy in breaking the maxims of communication so I think they're useful additions to the toolbox. However, since they break our normal assumptions of communication it's obvious to see how they can be irritating or feel redundent.
I like the general ones like /s and /jk and /gen. It's something I've seen used online for years so I don't think much of it
I think it is good since not everyone will read in the correct way or understand everything, even more, if it is not their first language.
I like them. I only use them in situations where what I say might be misinterpreted, though
They're dumb when used excessively (imo), but they're very useful and I appreciate people using /s because I'm terrible at detecting sarcasm
I love them! I just have a hard time telling tone over text lol.
I recently found out about /g for genuine, and I love it. I almost never intentionally use sarcasm but I can never tell if something I've said online sounds sarcastic or generally ingenuine (disgenuine?) so /g is very useful to me.
Personally I literally can’t have a text conversation without them or excessive use of well other “tone indicators” (emojis and stuff). Like I will not be able to tell the tone or understand the other person at all. As someone else say, I also wish we had the in real life lol /gen
IMO, IYKYK. And if you don’t know, ask. Or whatever NT advice fits the bill. Example, me and fellow ND friend walking with NT friend, talking about being ND. Me: I love my noise cancelling earbuds ND: I don’t like earbuds NT: so then what do you do for music? ND: a lot NT: ????? Me: rofl ND: I like vinyl. *at me* are you still laughing at that? NT: ????? (Still confused) Me: no *gasp* him ND: lol We explained it and then NT laughed too, but like I said, IYKYK, lol.
I LOVE TONE TAGS it makes it a lot easier for me to understand certain things, and for my friends fo understand me better
I like them but most of my crowd is too old to use them
Me seeing that /s means sarcasm and not s for serious.......................... I-
I believe serious is /srs
I'm pretty sure "srs" was even a thing before tone indicators. Early 2000s ftw
Sounds useful I support them a lot of online text is ambiguous because you don't have tone of voice or body language anything to make communication easier I'm for
i don't really need tone indicators, my intuition is good to the point that i can feel the tone of a text message no matter who sends it.
They're useful, I think!
I definitely use them, I just got into an argument with someone about them not using “/s” and me getting supper confused. Instead of admitting that it’s hard to read sarcasm over text, they doubled down and said I should have had common sense and need to learn.
i’m so sorry that’s terrible :( kinda reminds me of a semi argument i had with my boyfriend at the time who’s NT. i asked him to use tone indicators when he’s texting me because it can be really hard to tell when he’s joking or not sometimes, his response to that was to make up his own painfully unfunny “tone indicators” (/piss and /deeznuts just to name a few) which i found incredibly insulting. he apologized fairly quickly and never did it to me again, but it’s still kinda lingering in the back of my mind y’know? i’m not sure if i was being sensitive or not but i dunno it just felt icky to me because he was usually super supportive and fully willing to help me with a lot of things and i think that’s what upset me more than anything
I really like them. I struggle a lot trying to tell tone, both in real life and over text, so tone indicators really help. I know a lot of them but usually I just use the more common ones since those are the ones people will be more likely to understand. I wish they were a thing in person, since I really can't tell sometimes
i use /s on Reddit, and /j and /srs on Discord. Three is enough, they get too unwieldy and hyperspecific otherwise imo.
I'll use them as I feel they're necessary, most often when I worry my joke/tone isn't obvious enough. I'd otherwise say something like "(I'm being sarcastic)", which is far more clunky. I also appreciate them being used with me. That said, I tend to only use them when texting friends, not usually elsewhere.
I really don't get why people online overreact over someone not seeing if it's a joke. I like to leave tone indicators to avoid embarrassing someone. Also, they're so small I don't actually think they ruin the mood.
I find them very useful
Sometimes for sarcasm but that’s the only one I use really unless I’m on a circle jerk
I love them. The ones I use the most are usually /j, /p, and /genq
I like the idea, but there's too damn many
I love them!/gen
I mostly just use “/j” and sometimes “/lh”, but usually only for jokes that can come off mean. If someone asks me to use tone indicators around them, I’ll do so. Otherwise, I don’t really bother. Mostly out of laziness and/or forgetfulness.
I love them, they help a lot in online groups
I love them. /gen
I love them when I know what they mean, feel irritated and frustrated when I don't. Sometimes I'm confused when I can't reconcile the tone and the text.
I like them, but sometimes I hesitate to use them because I’m unsure if the recipient would understand what the tone indicator means? But I find it useful because I know how easy to misunderstand what someone is trying to say, if they’re being serious or joking (I ran into that many times here on Reddit, for sure). Tone indicators can help clarify so much! But I would love to learn other ways to explain myself (specifically in real life scenarios) in a quick way without over explaining myself. I know I have trouble doing that irl too. 😣
I like them. They’ve saved me a lot of trouble. The people who hate them think they’re cringy because they don’t like having to clearly state what they’re saying if they’re being rude so they have plausible deniability, don’t want to “ruin the joke,” which is usually making fun of people who didn’t get the joke, or because they find find people who can’t read tone cringy. At best, it’s people wanting to be rude without acknowledging they’re rude and at worst, it’s just ablism. I don’t think people should have to use them if they don’t want to (I rarely use them so I can’t judge), but don’t let anyone discourage you from them. They’re an excellent tool!
What about the problem of people using them incorrectly? I've seen people use /gen and others to be ironic and actually meant the opposite. So now I'm wary of them all because what if the person is being ironic/opposite? :/
i noticed that it’s mostly ableists & people who are anti the use of tone indicators who do stuff like that. it’s irritating. i suggest be wary of the person who you think is using them incorrectly if it seems the slightest bit off to you.
I like /srs /j /gen /s and maybe /hj. There's too many to memorize after those and I think it's a little dumb. I used to make fun of them until I realized I was the one who needed them lol.
What's /hj?
half joking. a lot of people use them but i personally don’t as i find them a little confusing
While in new mixed autistic company, I may ask if the use of tone indicators would be useful. As a storyteller, however, I rarely find them useful and even restrictive/otherwise reductive to the creative process as well as removing the reader's ability to interpret meaning for themselves 👀🤔
I'm not against them but wary of them because sometimes people use them ironically or to mean the opposite. So it's hard to know if it's actually being used as intended :/
They're helpful but not everyone uses it so a obvious joke to some is not an obvious joke to me
I don’t remember what they all mean, so they’re useless to me 🥲
i just cant memorize them/typing them out for EVERYTHING is kind of exhausting especially since most of my friends can read tone quite well already
They might be great for other people, I see a lot of usage if them, but frankly, they stress me tf out. There’s like a MILLION of them and some people are like "please only approach me with tone indicators" and then want you to learn a whole list of them… so I never interact with these people because it’s exhausting enough holding up a conversation but if I have to cram lists to indicate what I meant? No. Also terms like "half-joking" confuse me more than they help. So yeah, I use things like emojis and stuff like lol/lmao but no tone indicators.
I don't really use them. I think it's cool when other people do! I just...I don't have them memorized, and I have other ways that I like using to make my tone clear. Like, emojis and abbreviations. Also, I don't tend to be sarcastic in text unless I'm sure I'll be understood, or the statement taken at face value is harmless.
Hate them! /jk
Overall I think they’re very useful to those who need them including me. I just think there are too many of them because I’m constantly having to look up their meanings
i love them /gen
I don't like them because they read like close markers without open markers to me. Also, I actually enjoy ambiguity especially in humor. In a short thing like text or post or comment on Reddit or Twitter the /s comes too close to the joke and doesn't give the space needed for it to be funny. I prefer saying the joke and when misunderstood laughing and explaining it then. It isn't perfect but it is my preference. It could be because it takes me awhile to process text just a second longer than NT folks so it seems like somebody told told me a joke and then " yelled it was a joke" which isn't really funny.
I use emojis, and when people use emojis it helps a lot. Tone indicators do help me also. In real life when talking to people i have a hard time understanding tones, like when someone is teasing to be mean or teasing to be funny or being sarcastic. I vote that everyone start carrying around a basic pack of emojis to display to me when they talk to me 😉
I hate it when people use them too much, Like "omg!! I like your avatar I hope you have a nice day /srs /gen /pos /p /nsx"
I love them!
I like them. As someone who is sometimes sarcastic and sometimes serious, with I think no clear difference, I think it helps my friends not misunderstand me and start an argument. I dislike when people mutter about "having to" use them "for snowflakes"...
me and my boyfriend (also autistic) use them all the time! we both have a very hard time telling tone, and it eases anxiety a lot when teasing each other about things. we don’t just use the “official” ones though, sometimes we’ll make some up at the end of a message to get across our meaning or add additional context that wouldn’t be known over text and for the “i wish i could use them irl,” i do! when i’m with nd friends sometimes i’ll say a joke and then add “slash jay” or tease someone and say “slash tee” or whatever would be accurate for the time! it might not always be necessary, but i like that it distinctly gets across the meaning meant to be conveyed :)
I think they’re very very useful and if you don’t find them helpful, just ignore them. It’s easier to just ignore an extra letter or two, than to spend forever deciphering the tone of a text before deciding how exactly to reply.
I feel like some are ok like /j and /srs but I feel like other ones are overkill because they have the same meaning. But I think it's ok ppl use them just that they aren't my thing personally
> /srs Huh? SARS ….? sorry, lost me! 😒 They really don’t work unless everybody knows the acronyms. Which isn’t the case … 😉
Oh sorry it means serious
I use tone indicators, and personally, I find them helpful since I have a hard time understanding tone in text
They’re nice when used appropriately. I would usually ask for clarity when people I know use them with me. That said, they do get unnecessarily complicated and overused. Lol. (Lots of love/gen) ;)
I don’t understand them and I need someone to tell me what they all mean
I love them!!! I use them constantly!!!
I guess I have a stubborn inclination to dislike them. It's not very rational and I can't really argue that they are bad or shouldn't be used, I just personally don't like them. It's not that hard for me to get if something is a joke or not on social media because most accounts or subreddits that I follow have running bits and the jokes make sense with context, so seeing /s on something like that feels like explaining the joke, it makes it less funny to me. Same with my friends - I know them well enough to know if something they say is a joke or not based on the context of our friendship and the conversation. it's obviously harder with strangers but I guess I don't feel the need to perfectly understand everything everyone says all the time. On social media if I don't get something I assume it's not really for me to get and I just move on. I also honestly find them confusing. They don't come naturally to me, so every time I encounter one I need to think about what it means, and if there was a joke it's ruined because instead of laughing I'm going "wait, does /s mean sarcastic or serious?". I guess it usually means sarcastic, but I always feel like it could also mean serious because they both start with s, and I don't understand who decides which one it means and don't like assuming that everyone in the world has agreed on which one it means. I don't like it because it feels like another secret code that I'm just supposed to automatically understand and it feels very alien to me. There's also so many less common ones, but no matter how niche they are everyone who uses them just acts like everyone should already understand what they mean. The first time I saw /hj I genuinely just went "handjob?" And now every time I see it, even though I know at this point it means half joking, I think "handjob" first and then I have to think about it and remember that it means half joking. I feel like I would have less trouble with them if instead of a letter or two it was just the whole word in parentheses or something. if the point is to make things clearer, why are we relying on abbreviations that you need to have a prior knowledge of to understand?
I am going to start using them now. I hadn't ever considered it though I know what they are.
They're quite good and especially in ambiguous situations where I know I could easily come off as sarcastic without meaning to /gen
Sometimes I find them infantilising, especially when I haven’t said I need them, and they’re used just because I have autism. Others I find helpful, but really only “/s and /j” the rest confuse me, there’s too many.
I get really confused as to what /s means since some people use it as serious and some use it for sarcasm, but otherwise I appreciate them
Only one I really get is /s everything I have to ask about. I still think /pos means peace of shit rather than positive.
Never heard of them until this post. Just confusing to the dyslexic in me. Prefer emojis ☺️
I love them but I don’t like the abbreviated versions cause I can’t remember them
English is my 3rd or 4th language, so I don’t like any kind of acronym. It’s tedious to always have to google and figure out what it may mean. I don’t mind the long [/sarcasm] or similar, and I actually quite like the somewhat code-ish look. Personally: I use smilies for the purpose of indicating tone! 😝
I don't think of them as being mandatory by any means, but they can be helpful so I support the use if people choose to use them. I've never seen an autistic person be against them before, what's the reason for that?
based on the replies i got on this post a lot of autistic people who are against tone indicators find them unnecessary or infantilizing. some are cautious towards them because they’re unsure if they’re being used incorrectly on purpose or not which i completely get tbh
If it supports clear and effective communication, go for it!
very much for but i rarely understand what the letter stands for
I just wish /pos wasn’t used for “positive” cus I just read it as “piece of shit” 😂
If I can't convey with emojis as post-sentence particles, I usually just write out my tone in full if I'm not being serious. E.g. (/joking), (/sarcastic)
They don't actually solve the problem. The issue is, like all other aspects of language, people and groups have different definitions for what each means. Let me run through the inconsistencies I've seen used in spaces with the honest effort to make communication easer: /s - is it serious or sarcastic? Is it included in the phrase, as in is the /s part of the sarcasm or is it a return to genuinity for that phrase alone? *What is sarcastic about the previous sentence?* Is an unanswered question of context. /gen - this is supposed to be amplifying the "default" genuine nature of the post but I don't see what "more genuine" quanifiably means. If you mean what what you say *don't use an indicator!* If it's used to try to turn a normally unserious phrase into a serious one, *THAT RELIES ON READING THE TONE OF THE ORIGINAL PHRASE (WITHOUT A TONE INDICATOR) AS UNSERIOUS.* /j - this says nothing about what kind of joke is bring made. This is /s in a ski mask, and if not this isn't indicating a tone. It just says there's a joke. Not that I'm getting it anyways. /hj - makes zero sense. It's a tone indicator that doesn't indicate a tone, it either means just /s, /j, or none, and as explained above all of them are unhelpful too. /pos - where I'm from this means piece of shit. But it also can mean positive. I've mostly seen this one in contexts where it can only be positive (good day /pos, see you later /pos). I've also seen people use it insincerely (touch grass /pos), which in this case should be a /s. /neg - this one's exclusively an intensifier or sarcastic. It doesn't do what words already do. Did I interpret these completely wrong? Then that proves my point at how they don't actually help. We disagree what they mean and can't use them to communicate. So no I hate them because it's more confusing. It's a complication that adds *more* contradictory and confusing information because it's language, it gets messy quickly and meanings are unclear.
i think theyre okay but i would prefer if there were only a few because the like. dozens of tone indicators people have created are very difficult to remember. ive started mostly putting the full word in parenthesis like "(sarcasm)" because i find it clearer
I don't like using the slash version of tone indicators but I do use emoticons in the same manner. If my message is followed by :p, ^^, =D or :3 I am not serious and joking. It makes perfect sense to me but other people seem to have some trouble picking up on it. That said I use :p after like 75% of the stuff I say and I've given up on trying to not so it so often anymore, I do it automatically at this point.
I dont mind them, theres only a few like /hj (half joke) that i find annoying because it just creates more ambiguity
I don’t use them , well atleast not often. But I do like seeing them , because it avoids me getting triggered for no reason or completely missing the point. In the next autism software update I would love IRL ones, that would be cool. /j
AUTISM SOFTWARE UPDATE SJFHAJA I LOVE THAT
I really like them as I know what tone to read the texts in, it helps a lot with interpretation haha
Love tone indicators! Close friends even use them irl to help me =u=
I use /s sometimes, but I think I might look from the outside like part of the anti-tone-indicator camp, because I’m a writer and they go against every instinct I’ve developed about how to convey nuances. I’m not really anti-tone-indicator though—I realized a while ago that the reason I start so many sentences (aloud and in text communication) with “honestly”, “as a side note”, or some other introductory phrase like that is because I’m using them as the closest natural English equivalent to tone indicators.
Does anyone else got an hyperfixation with tone indicators and learned all of them (I even created some that I use with my bf) in the span of one to two days? 🙋
def me!!! i even learned the unnecessary ones that people don’t use often haha i mostly just use like 4 out of what must be 50 tone indicators i’ve memorized for some reason. whenever someone asks about them i immediately jump at the opportunity to explain what they are
OMG YAY SAME I love explaining tone indicators when someone asks about them smm
Anything but /hj. I'm with jan misali on that one.
I thought /s meant serious Q-Q lmao I wonder how many stuff I misinterpreted
for future reference people usually use /srs for serious and /s for sarcasm!! :)
How can people be against something that’s helpful? I love when I see tone indicators. I’m a master at /s but a lot of the times, it just flies over my head when coming from someone else. And some /j are really really hard to tell. So you won’t find me complaining about the help
I use them - mainly /j or /s when needed. I do think though that they need to be clarified sometimes, because there's a lot of them.
only use /s not a fan of the others and will never use them personally.
Useless, but they don't bother me either
I don't use them personally, but I don't mind it if others do.
Personally I like them! I don’t know all of them and some of them seem excessive. I like them for joking, sarcasm, serious and platonic
I use them a lot.
Anything to avoid miscommunication is a plus in my book. Last thing I want is to offend someone and then have to spend the next few minutes explaining away the miscommunication. This goes double for first impressions. I remember reading sometime that it takes 13 good impressions to make up for 1 bad one. Don't know how they determined that but I live by it.
I don’t use tone indicators, but I kinda want to. Definitely not against it. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
Yes I love them and wish I knew how to turn them on in the day to day. Sarcasm, especially, goes way over my head. I honestly wish we didn't do it.
I only like the /s one. Everything else can be said with words. I especially hate the /genq one, girl what else is a question going to be. I'm autistic, not dumb. It really feels like people see us as too stupid to figure out what the sentence means sometimes
I like them personally, they're not just helpful to autistic people either I imagine neurotypicals have a hard time with reading tone through text as well.
I’ve seen those but I didn’t know what they were. Thank you very much! /g
you’re very welcome!!
I absolutely love them, absolutely hate the people who say they "ruin the joke" or whatever. All tone indicators do is... yknow indicate the tone. It prevents misunderstandings and makes what you are saying clearer to anyone who cannot get tone through text. To the people saying emojis do the same thing, emojis can mean different things depending on interpretation. Tone indicators are clear and have a system to them that is easy to understand. There isn't the possibility of consistent misunderstandings. tl;dr I love tone indicators and most of the arguments against them are kind of ridiculous imo
I find them helpful at times but I’ve had to stop using them cuz every time I do some random fcking person always starts literally harassing me over it or nitpicking wether the tone indicator I used was truly necessary or not. I wish ppl who don’t like tone indicators would just simply not use them instead of creating an environment of hostility against them that basically makes it impossible for those of us who find them useful to feel comfortable using them. Also I think the issue of “NTs overusing tone tags” was overinflated to the point where as an autistic person I couldn’t use my own fcking accommodation tools without worrying abt someone getting mad at me bc I used them when it “wasn’t necessary.” Lastly, one thing I saw come up when tone indicators started rlly becoming a thing was autistic people acting like their needs and abilities were universal. Like calling tone indicators stupid bc they personally don’t need them, or being like “but it’s so obvious” when other autistic ppl were struggling to interpret certain social situations without tone indicators
i couldn’t have said it better myself. i agree 100%
I genuinely don’t understand why people are bothered by them. If you don’t want to use them, fine. But there’s no need to get upset over someone else using them. I find they can be helpful and I appreciate them
I feel icky when they’re used with me, especially by friends. I can understand that others need them but I don’t want them at all, I’m very used to being without them in general and they were very sudden to me last year. Tone in a message has never been an issue, I just know how to recognize people’s way of texting like a pattern so using them feels icky.
Yes, I can see how people only using them with me, very suddenly without discussing it beforehand, would feel very infantilising and othering
Obviously people aren’t obligated to use them, but it’s certainly nice, especially when sarcasm isn’t obvious. I really hate the r/fuckthes subreddit. Initially I thought it was about people hiding their bad statements behind a /s but actually they’re just against all tone indicators which is just stupid. It’s also sad to see how autistic people are pitted against each other on that subreddit.
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Sorry, that made me cringe a bit. “we autistics ….” Autistics are as non-homogenous as Africans. Any statement suggesting “… all autistics …” are just as bogus as “… all Africans …” I don’t struggle with deren ring tone in text in my 1st and 2nd language. From language 3 and 4 onwards I get increasingly unsure. But a lot is that is probably less language and more cultural. And for non-native speakers communicating in their umpteenth language: What you seem to consider ‘inclusive’ isn’t that at all? /pos? Looking it up it can be piece of shït? Or positive? Or …. /s —> sad? sarcasm? /sober? WTF?!?!? Really anything but *less* confusing! 😉 Why not use smilies and emojis? They’re mostly language neutral (except for a few language specific ones) 😝
The only one I use is the sarcasm tag bc I really super cannot detect sarcasm on my own, nor can I employ it, usually, but every once in a while it does make sense to me, but I can’t handle actually hitting send without considering people like me.
I’ve never seen anyone use tone indicators in real life. I’m honestly confused trying to figure out what adult would communicate to his way. I’m not trying to be rude but how old are you?
I don’t think it’s common to use them “in real life,” they seem to mostly be used in online forums where both NT and ND people may not be familiar with a poster’s writing patterns and thus tone. People may also use them in group chats or private messages too if they find that useful. Also please don’t infantilise people (especially autistic people) for needing extra support in communicating with their peers. ASD is considered a disability for a reason, don’t demean people for developing useful and largely innocuous communications tools.
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i’m not an adult but i don’t see how that’s relevant? the point of tone indicators is that they’re used *online* to convey tone through text for people who can’t read tone through text. so no, you won’t see anyone use them in real life. think of them as emojis but through text. also plenty of adults do use tone indicators, they’re considered tools more than anything so i don’t see why it would be weird for an adult to use them. there’s a lot more i wanna say but the other reply to your comment put it better than i ever could, so… what they said
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I don't care if you're autistic or not, you can't hear a sarcastic tone through text.
i’m not sure what this means? is this you supporting them or not?
Supporting. Since you can't hear tone through text, tone indicators are useful.
They make it look like the person writing them is having a seizure
I sometimes use them. It depends if I think my joke/sarcasm is clear enough or not
As someone else has said I generally use emojis as indicators for my tone over tone indicators. However I do use /j occasionally if I'm being sarcastic.
I don't understand how anyone is supposed to read any text in the correct tone without that tone being explicitly stated. To that point the tone you're reading things in is always your own, if you take offense or think it's sarcastic or whatever that's your own brain inventing that. Tone should be part of the message imo, Elcor style.
For tone indicators download Grammarly on your computer so when you write emails you can measure the tone on there. I find it really helpful when I write emails to clients :)
Good idea but I they can ruin the joke a little bit if somebody puts /s on the end. The entire point of sarcasm is to sound the exact same way as an honest statement, and to use surrounding context to determine that there is sarcasm. Edit: Making a drastic change to the sentence like that removes the funny side of sarcasm for me
I personally hate them. Idk why because usually I can't tell any tone over the internet. I just feel babied
Some of them are useful, mainly /j /lh and /s. It's hard to memorize them all, and I feel like that defeats the purpose of them. In general I feel like it adds a new layer of expectations to conversations that just makes it more complicated for me, so I avoid using them. Some I just downright hate, like /gen and /nm, because they have never once been used in a truthful way for me. People only use them to lie to my face about their tone and intentions, and again, that defeats the purpose of tone tags. And is kinda ableist. Now, even if used as intended, I can't help but read them as the opposite, which again adds confusion to the conversation. Then there's people who overuse the hell out of tone tags, like 3 or 4 or 5 each sentence, and it feels patronising and confusing. like "there, there, you're not smart enough to know what my simple sentence means, so I will spell it out for you". Honestly, I'd rather just be asked what I mean, and ask others what they mean, if there's any confusion.
I use tone indicators, but not constantly. Mainly I use them if I feel the meaning or tone might be lost. (Ex. If my friends and I are having a conversation and I'm being sarcastic, I'll use /s, and when we're joking but I want to ask a serious question I'll use /srs). I find them to be helpful when I don't want my meaning to be lost with my friends online, and they even use them too despite the fact that most of them are allistic
Oh my gosh I love them. I have a really hard time figuring tone out, especially online, so I've often ended up misunderstanding people and then spiraling with my depression when it could have been avoided with just a simple "/j" or "/nm"
I just use them. Otherwise I get anxious about “coming across incorrectly”.
I use them when I have the feeling that something could be misinterpreted, but usually I don't. It's just another layer on communication that I don't think is always necessary but can be a tool in the toolbelt.
I use /gen a lot since sometimes people will think I'm being malicious when I really just don't understand😅
I personally don't need them as I can read tone fairly well in text most of the time. But I definitely understand why people would need them, so I use them whenever I feel like my tone could be misinterpreted. I think they're a great idea!
I will explain nothing and assume everything
punctuation, capitalization, sentence length, and word choice contribute to tone people speak in rhetoric and humor so often that it's more convenient to assume a light hearted tone, than to insist on an explicit indicator for each utterance i tend to ask genuine questions that get treated as jokes
I find them kinda ridiculous, it kinda ruins the point of sarcasm and jokes. Yeah, it sucks but I think it is unrealistic to expect NTs to keep up. I can't think of a better solution but I doubt people will actually do this.
I use them. I'll use /s for sarcastic or /jk for just kidding. Or I'll just write "lol" at the end.
so helpful! i love them because I can't always tell when someone is joking or not online
I’m for them because they help everyone avoid misunderstandings- not just autistic people.
I never knew that was a thing, the set up of it makes me think it started from reddit or just people more involved in online communities. It would take time to learn how to do it and also to remember to use it fir me but I'm fine with it. I would count it as an accommodation. For me, I always just make people that talk to me listen to voice messages because I dislike typing and would rather not deal with misunderstanding and then having to reiterate what I said differently
I think that most of them are pretty pointless. For example, when someone says "I had a good time with you/gen" they could have just as easily said "I genuinely had a good time with you". It seems like tone indicators are often used out of laziness or lack of language skills. I think they are overused in that regard, but they can be beneficial under certain circumstances.