Tone Indicators

Welcome back to Redefining Inclusivity! Good to have you back.

I wanted to share with you a recent finding today. While scrolling through Instagram earlier this week, I noticed a mental health account replying to comments on one of their posts about anxiety. I realized that each of their replies had some variation of a forward slash paired with a letter or two, and was quite confused as to what they were. Upon further research, I found that these are actually called tone indicators, used to, as their name suggests, indicate tone and emotion in an otherwise emotionless or hard-to-read piece of text.

So, are these even worth mentioning? Absolutely! Here's why. It's no secret that society has begun living off screens. Especially through the pandemic, many of us have moved our entire lives onto devices- physical calendars became shared agendas for zoom calls, talking in person became solely text and email, even advertising has shifted fully to clips between Instagram stories or YouTube videos. While shifting online may be overall efficient to some, this new system can be incredibly difficult for others to adjust to, be it due to efficiency, neurodivergency, or mental illness.

It's difficult enough to read facial expressions and body language in face-to-face conversation. It truly can't be any easier to be forced into deciphering the tone someone is broadcasting in a text without obvious emotion, even with punctuation. "Yes." to most would be interpreted as polite and professional, but its incredibly easy for it to be taken as dismissive or even projecting annoyance. Now those aren't fun things to guess about, especially to us over-thinkers.

While it's easy to argue that emojis make life so much easier when interpreting tone in text, they aren't as widely used among adults as they are teens, which poses a challenge to those unable to read inferred emotion. Tone indicators can be used as short-hand warnings, clarifiers, subject lines, and more. So, without further ado, let's jump right into our crash course on tone indicators.

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​Indicator	Meaning	Explanation
/j	joking	This can be used to clarify humor, satire, or sarcasm. “I LOVE staying up late just to finish assignments! /j”
/hj	half joking	This is an equivalent to a sarcastic half laugh. Both /j and /hj can be used when reducing the level of seriousness in a message as well. “I am usually right. /hj”
/s or /sarc	sarcastic or sarcasm	This is a good one for jokes and one-liners that are difficult to interpret. “That behavior is definitely appropriate in today’s society. /sarc”
/srs	serious	​Implies the lack of humor, need for seriousness. Can also be used as a warning- to show the level of importance of a text. “I understand this project sounds ridiculous, but I need that new design done by Friday. /srs”
/nsrs	not serious	Helps to reduce a harsh or serious tone that may be implied in a line, or to imply slight humor and satire without fully letting on. Example: “Yes, she absolutely was able to fit an entire carton of eggs into her purse /nsrs”
/lh	light hearted	Expresses a less serious tone, a more humorous or positive one. “Hey, don’t call me dumb! /lh”
/g	genuine	Helpful when expressing that a compliment or a sentence is a genuine one and not satire. “I absolutely love that you posted this message! /g”
/gen	genuine	Helpful in distinguishing serious versus non-serious questions “Why do you find this issue so important? /gen”
/nm	not mad	Can aid in toning down a direct, or harsh sounding text “I noticed you didn’t clean your room, and I need you to get that done tonight! /nm”

Of course, there are far more than I've listed above such as /pos or /neg (positive or negative connotation), but these are the biggest ones I've stumbled across. If I missed any important ones, feel free to add a comment or shoot me an email! Hope I taught you something new today. I definitely learned a lot more through researching for this post.

Thanks for joining me! Until next time,

-Vaishali

Works Cited:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/style/tone-indicators-online.html#:~:text=Tone%20indicators%20are%20paralinguistic%20signifiers,for%20a%20pop%20culture%20crush.

https://tonetags.carrd.co/