the /hj tone indicator is worse than useless
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- my thoughts on the /hj (half-joking) tone indicator, and somewhat on tone indicators (or tone tags) as a whole, coming from the perspective of an autistic person who often has trouble inferring what people mean through text online.
featuring jan Kesi (ChatterCat), who you might know as the cowriter of the toki pona lesson course series. she has her own youtube channel now! [ / @chattercat ]
00:00 - intro
01:35 - /s and /j
05:18 - okay but like which half is the joke
11:59 - im going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice /hj
14:53 - the bigger picture
/ hbmmaster
conlangcritic.bandcamp.com
seximal.net
/ hbmmaster (this twitter account is a bot now)
/ janmisali
I never want to see another definition of /hj ever again
Ubderstood
i like the html method of indicating sarcasm like its so over the top like that's great anyway do you ever think about who discovered cows milk and decided to drink it is so strange but it definetly gets the point across
Is this why the video showed back up in my feed?
Understandable, have a tunderfal day
@@d-righty because youtube predicted you would engage with it, and you did
I swear 80% of the time someone uses half-joking, they're throwing the idea out there to see what other people think and then decide whether they're being serious or not
a form of schrodinger's asshole
think it assurs the people you're talking to that no, Im not some stuck-up with a god complex or whatever, I just think im pretty good at X, to me it implies more that a person think theyre specifically good at X, whilst not being as good at other stuff vaugely related
The Schrödinger’s Douchebag sorta except not necessarily offensive
Ah, Schrödinger's Douchebag, I know them well
I agree with you /hj
To me, ‘half joking’ is that awkward thing someone says that everyone is laughing about while giving each other a worried side eye.
Truth
kinda
real!
Does this mean all of my conversations are just us starting at each other worryingly 💀 /hj
This is what I normally use it for 😭
reject tone indicators embrace one word in brackets (threatening)
Yes (aroused)
We should (genuine)
Absolutely(skibidi toilet)
/th exists
@@theflyingspaget it sure does... but are you really a tone indicator defender? (Genuinely Curious)
this video has been a fascinating revelation of how neurotypical I actually was.
Real! Because i can't explain how it works, it just does.
@@RNB_lovrAs Todd Howard once said, "it just works"
I'm not, but I'm very thankful that I don't struggle with these interpretations-and frustrated that the things that make complete sense in my head don't always in practice
@@TheOneWayDown Right, but there are other kinds of neurodiversity. You have to understand that a lot of people tend to use "neurodivergent" to mean like... anxiety. Or undiagnosed disorders that uneducated kids and young adults like to claim they have. It's good that you don't struggle with these interpretations, but most of us do. It means you may either not be as afflicted by whatever your disorder/disability is, compared to most people who have it; or, you've simply dedicated a lot of your time and energy to understanding these things that the rest of us do not. Me, personally, I don't understand them because, at a fundamental level, I do not understand why others cannot be clear with their intentions. Implications are understandable enough, as long as they are not extremely vague, but implications still do not clarify intentions. If a person cannot be clear with me and communicate with me in a way that cannot be misconstrued, then they are not the kind of person I want to talk to. That is where the line is drawn. That's not to say you are neurotypical, but it seems you're similar to one, in which case these complaints really are not meant for you.
Honestly now I'm just impressed to have found a confidently neurotypical person in the comments of a jan Misali video. I didn't realize neurotypical people liked these videos.
I’ve honestly always interpreted /hj as a shorter way to say “for legal reasons This is a joke”
😂
Unfortunately the police can still arrest you if you say "The last time I tried this my basement had to be expanded just so I could terminate the subject in question /hj" just say "And by the way this is a joke I'm not admitting to locking people in my basement" and just to make it clear I allegedly don't have anyone locked in basement you can't catch me F.B.I!
I've frequently seen it used as a noncommittal way to flirt.
Someone you are legitimately romantically interested saying "ugh, I wish I had a partner" and you replying with "yoo, like, I'm right here tho?? /hj" implies that you would totally date them but there's no actual expectations.
/hj isn't really useful looking at it. jan misali gets his point across in this really well and I actually think I may stop using /hj at all.
My lawyer has advised me I can’t continue this joke
@@BobSmith-tm2kj There's an old joke that goes something like "[addressed to a woman] the Venn diagram of male friends who joke about having sex with you and those who would fuck you at the slightest hint that you're interested is a circle." It's not funny or particularly insightful, but it's relevant to your example.
My problem with /hj is that my brain always interprets it as "handjob" regardless of context.
Thank you haha, I hadn't seen this before and that's all my brain could come up with
Yep. Confused the hell out of me at first
It's Hungry Jacks for me 😅
Hey, at least it's better than being the German abbreviation for the Hitler youth
@@PH0B0PH1L1A Imagine telling this to someone who doesn't know tone indicators lmao
"Wow you are big /pos"
Genuinely only now learning that /hj does not stand for hand job
God now im gonna read it as
"im going to leave for your house immediately. *Starts giving you a handjob*"
it does. but political correctness is trying to change that 🤣
Well, we should change that
this video is very good. not only did you achieve its main purpose - to convince me why /hj is so bad - but also, you incidentally helped me figure out why I have some complicated feelings about “xD” (it’s because it conveys sincerity! i am autistic too and almost pathologically sincere, and that’s scary online! holy shit!)
xD
Wait xD conveys sincerity??? I have never heard this (or thought) and ive been on the internet only slightly less than half my life. Wtf
@@dinoaurus1 For the most part it kinda does! While some people may use "xD" as a "laugh", it's similar to how "lol" is tossed around even though it doesn't literally mean the user is laughing out loud. For example "Don't worry, it's fine lol" is more akin to "Don't worry, it's fine--I am being light-hearted". In the same way, "Don't worry, it's fine xD" means the same thing.
I play games with friends and one of the most common forms of sincerity is "xd". No capitalization. We know what it means, so we make it simple. And to most people, it signifies that you are easy to get along with or talk to (makes you seem less uppity or overdramatic). People using "XD" is mostly sarcastic, but for everyone else it IS more of an indication of laughter, such as a capital "LOL" or "LMAO".
I hope that helps explain it a little better. While people CAN use such things sarcastically, technically anything can be used sarcastically. You can choose to have the benefit of the doubt, and it they start saying unsavory things you don't agree with, it'll be easier to narrow down their intentions. Cheers!!
Wait, XD is meant to be sincere?? I've been using it basically as a synonym for /j (i.e. See above: an 18 min video on how dumb internet conversation is XD)
@@nomoretwitterhandleshmm... I've always used lol for things that I find funny but not nesecarily worthy to laugh out loud at. Which is pretty ironic.
I use xD when I genuinely feel like I'd die if I laughed more at something(that is to say, that my stomach feels like it'd explode the next second)
Do not use tone indicators, take everything seriously and get into fights with strangers online.
Sigma male grindset
These hands are rated E for Everyone
I zozzled
Why would you want to get into fights with strangers online, especially when you know it's just a misunderstanding? That's really toxic and pointless.
exactly
the sigma grindset
I've always interpreted "half-joking" as "I'm joking unless you agree with me, in which case I'm being serious."
For me it's like "I mean this but I'm afraid/ashamed of saying it"
For me its “what im saying is actually true, but its mainly a joke since idrc” for example: “why do you have more views than me?! /hj” they do actually have more views, thats not a joke, but the joke part is that im not actually mad, it doesn’t rlly bother me like I made it out to be *as a joke* tho I probably should just use /j
@@xempororhxppyxuse /lh
thats completely wrong.
Half joking is when you say something thats kinda true, at least in your opinion, in a slightly abraisive manner. its more "playful", but still something you believe. In real life this might be when you rip on your friends for something weird they do. Youre saying it in a joking manner, but the fact is that they do that that thing. Thus its a half joke.
If you write hj it means you agree with the statement you said, its just being said in either a harsh or comedic way. I genuinely dont know why yall struggle to understand this.
this^^
The fact that 2/3rds of this videos comments are something along the lines of "I don't agree, here's what I think
it means: [personal subjective definition]" is saying a lot.
i am an autistic person who is not confused by the /hj tone indicator or the concept of half joking. i struggle quite a bit with sarcasm and some jokes but half joking is one of those things i get. AND YET
i have watched this video four times and i am still baffled by the “absurd amount of orange juice” example. it may be the most confusing /hj use case ive ever seen
I am ND, but luckily I usually have a pretty easy time figuring out what people mean. Sometimes I'm wrong, but usually not _that_ wrong.
When the orange juice example was first stated, I thought I understood what it was saying. Then the thought process was explained and I was like "okay yeah I guess this isn't quite clear". And then I tried thinking about how I'd explain it and then realised I ACTUALLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT AT ALL. This sentence has transcended reason and is now so wild to me. I have so many questions for that anonymous person.
For when there is a mildly amusing amount of orange juice
@@tikatooI love the turn of phrase "transcended reason".. No clue why, I just find it really funny for some reason.
I think they're just buying slightly more than a reasonable amount of orange juice, and the "/hj" is unnecessary embellishment. Based on the phrase "I literally am half joking," I suspect the asker isn't putting that much thought into their words, b/c, like, wtf does that even mean lmao, which I think makes it most reasonable to assume the "/hj" is thoughtlessly superfluous. Regardless, that ask is ironically a really good illustration of Misali's point lol
this oj example is just stupid, don't let it bother you
I want a Death Note episode where we see Kira's thought process as he struggles trying to interpret "im going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice /hj" after L wrote that on his Onlyfans page
this is the best comment on this video. thank you for the laugh. /genuine
what a comment /hj
ruclips.net/video/miv5qaDUF-s/видео.html
I described using /hj to my partner as, "like throwing a flashbang at the end of my sentence"
god this comment is amazing, you said death note and i knew exactly where this was going.
People in the comments are explaining how they use/interpret /hj, when the whole point of the video is that the problem with /hj is that everyone uses it differently and it's hard to tell just from the text how it's currently being used. Like the fact that you have to explain how you, individually, use it, is the whole problem!
We can use them in all sorts of ways, but there aren't multiple definitions.
The first two definitions in the video are misunderstanding the concept. It's not saying anything about literalness. It's saying the statement is a joke, but ironically true.
And the third is a common use for them, not a definition of them.
The sentence means he is making a joke about buying orange juice, but he might still actually go buy some. The example is missing the context of the joke.
@@theneoreformationist tone indicators are meant to explain tone in a concrete way, not make it more difficult to discern; the fact you need "context" is the more reason that it is completely useless, that's what tone IS
@@uraynuke ???
The joke is only confusing because it is missing context. You are only hearing the punchline. That has nothing to do with tone indicators.
@@theneoreformationist If it has nothing to do with the tone indicator as tone doesn't actually convey the neccesary information then what is it even used for here other than wasting space? and hearing just the punchline to a joke you're missing defeats the entire point of a joke
this isn't even communication at this points, it's deliberate miscommunication (and i mean it as someone who DOES get half-jokes)
You aren't understanding what I'm saying at all. The tone indicator is not useless. It is there to communicate that although the statement is a joke, he does actually need orange juice.
The context is NOT required to interpret the meaning of the tone indicator. The context IS required to get the joke. We know exactly what the statement means from the tone indicator, but we don't know why it was said.
The tone indicator is the only part that IS helping us understand the sentence, so it certainly isn't useless.
Your video perfectly explains the issues I have with tone indicators as an autistic person. I just think it's more productive communication to, like you said, write out the whole word, rephrase stuff, or just clarify your meaning if someone is confused about it
I also wish people would stop assuming every single ND person uses them. I don't like people using tone indicators at me, and it makes me me feel condescended to when people assume I need them when I didn't ask. "Don't assume what accesibility aids someone needs" is a pretty basic principle of interacting with disabled people
have you considered the possibility of the person using them because they aren't confident of their own ability to express the point correctly? many people use tone indicators preventatively because they don't want to be misunderstood, not necessarily because they think the person they are talking to needs them
First off, expecting other people to modify their way of communicating to make sure that some possible neurodivergent person who may possibly read something that they say and misunderstand it, even if it’s at the expense of their ease of communication and them getting their point across is just expecting the world to conform to exactly what you need without having to put in any legwork. It’s not anyone else’s problem if you misunderstand something, and you are the one who is responsible for letting someone know that you need further information. You feeling condescended to is also your problem, and quite frankly is projecting your own victim mentality, you have trouble understanding a comment yet are so sure in your assuming that you know the intention behind someone’s use of a tone indicator is a hilarious contradictory, because 90% of people using tone indicators aren’t using them to cater to ND people, they’re using them to make sure that everybody reading the comment understands them. And if you think I’m neurotypical and just being ableist; I’m ADHD, and I understand that it’s MY responsibility to make sure that my ADHD doesn’t interfere with my day to day responsibilities, and that if it does, then it’s MY responsibility to find ways to improve. My job doesn’t care that I’m ADHD, if I can’t manage, I’m not keeping my job, and I can’t be mad that MY problems aren’t universally catered to.
As someone whos highly sensitive to other enotions, yeah. Tone indicators kinda feel like saying "people wont get it"..
Let me use some real proper milatry grade grammar rules real quick.
I was walking through the park; saw a bird and some other things. The birds were /flocking/ about and "laughing". I decided to throw some crumbs down and "yum"! they went!! Birds are so "cute"! to me.
And here sarcasm.
Oh, u think im stupid? Or dum? Wow, i cant believe dis man!! How cooulldd yoouu!!
@@John-Perry @John-Perry "you are responsible for letting someone know that you need further information"
I mean I don't disagree with that lol. I have no shame in asking for further information if I'm confused about something and I never said anything contradicting that in my comment. i'm not sure where you got that I think people need to cater to me? I think if anything that's the case for people who act as if someone personally not using tone indicators is ableist in itself(not saying that's you but it's a sentiment i've seen with tone indicators users)
and the video shows that tone indicators are used more like slang than accessibility tools anyways, so they often fail to actually clarify meaning for everyone. in the end most people will understand "hey genuine question what's this?" right away instead of "whats this /gen"
@@John-Perry basically my opinion is that if tone indicators are something that works for you and your friend group or you use it as slang that's fine, but you can't call people ableist for not wanting to(or not being able to) memorize an entire wall of confusing shorthands. someone doesn't use tone indicators and said something that confuses you? just ask what they mean, and if they're rude about it THEN they're the ableist asshole
I’ve never thought of tone indicators as accessibility tools, but I also didn’t know they were called tone indicators. I learned through context what /s means as my first bit of exposure and that’s really the only one I’ve seen commonly used.
All in all this seems like just another bit of Internet slang. Tone can be difficult to read in text, so I’m sure they help, but the way they are malleable and change just tells me that they’re another work of fiction from the Internet.
I don’t inherently have a problem with Internet slang or anything, I think it’s a rather remarkable evolution of language, but this just seems like another one of those.
FWIW, /s has been around for years before any of the other tone indicators and is strictly a result of sarcasm being notoriously annoying to catch/pick up on just through internet comments. So, they definitely started off as internet slang but in the last few years have become their own established thing (moreso in autistic and wider neurodivergent circles).
In my experience you can usually interpret "half joking" as saying "Please interpret this as genuine in any respect that makes me look good and ignore it in any respect that makes me look bad."
By way of example, the /hj on "im going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice" means "I really like orange juice and am going to buy a humorously large amount of it, but don't take me as some freak that has a refrigerator full of orange juice". "well I am usually right /hj" means "I'm acting full of myself in a funny way but actually I do think I'm usually right but don't take that as meaning I'm full of myself or something". I can't imagine anyone putting a /hj on "This cat video is the best cinematic work in the past century", because saying that doesn't really confer positive or negative connotations on the writer, so there's no need for it. For NTs, selecting words for communication is not just about conveying an idea to someone, it's also about managing your reputation and casting yourself in a good light, and saying you're half joking is a hacky way to absolve yourself of having to work on the latter.
ok
This is exactly how I've used it... I feel called out
this is how it's used
@@qufanat Idk, imo it’s usually about hyperbole and not about attempting to look better. If someone says „going to buy absurd amount of orange juice /hj“ it’s about buying a lot of it but also not the actual absurd amount. Yk… hyperbole. I could say „I ate so much I will die /hj” and hj is not about reputation but the fact that I hyperbolized the effect of me overeating. I am not actually in danger but also it does hurt and it is unhealthy. I never seen /hj used as a way of showing yourself in a better light, but tbh I rarely use tone tags and mostly see them on TikTok or smth so idk lol
I use /hj regularly when joking about plans with someone. I usually use it as “this is a joke, but I wouldn’t be against it if you’re down.” Like “you should just ditch school and come over to my house /hj”
This one makes the most sense to me, I think. It's a way of allowing something to be a joke but also allowing someone to take it seriously without that pushback of "hey now, I was just joking, I honestly didn't mean it."
Like, "I've got fifteen boxes of Girl Scout cookies, go ahead and take them all before I eat them! /j" would indicate that no, you are not allowed to confiscate all my Girl Scout cookies, regardless of my stated diet plans. I said it *purely* to be funny and I still want these cookies (and might be joking about how many boxes I bought, too). And you have to figure out a socially acceptable amount of cookies to request/take.
But the /hj version would indicate that hey, if you feel up to stealing all my Girl Scout cookies, I honestly wouldn't be mad about it, and I leave the results in your hands as to how much you feel up to taking. I think?
...but yes, human communication is ambiguous enough without adding deliberately ambiguous stuff, isn't it? I mean, even if someone phrased a thing this way, I think I'd still be worried that I'd be overstepping bounds to "take it at face value" as it were. Augh.
YEAH YEAH YEAH that’s exactly how I use it and how I’ve most often seen it used or how I’ve interpreted it !!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's how I use it too!! I usually use it when I say a really absurd opinion about something like "lemons taste way better when you eat the peel too" and things that will *sound* like a joke but are actually something I do
I feel like, “haha jk… unless” conveys this idea so much more succinctly and also opens up the conversation to see what people think of the idea.
Side note, “you should ditch and come to my house /HJ”, would be the funniest thing to misinterpret
Yes, Schrödinger's joke is my primary use case for /hj as well.
I only know one scenario that I understood the "/hj”.
It was when my best friend on their last day before moving states gave me a note that read, "what to make out?/hj". We both knew we liked eachother but decided to stay friends due to our mental health and family situations. In this scenario the "/hj" was used to indicate they are serious about the question, but it's fine if it's a no and to pretend it's a joke.
Did you?
We need the lore now
The person who wrote the orange juice example just has a complete lack of awareness of what they are even doing. They didn't even explain why they did it, they are going purely off how it "feels". This is EQUIVALENT to going "I just add haha because hahaha seems like too much etc.". It's nothing to do with any strict meaning, it's completely a product of their interactions with others and natural mirroring of language, which creates that sort of inherent sense of what "feels right".
Again, what is frustrating about the comment is that they haven't recognised this, and think that they are offering up a genuinely insightful answer somehow. They are not, they are doing the equivalent of going "haha" feels right but "hahaha" is too much. In other words, you CANNOT know what it means without just seeing how people use it. And if you are new to the use of it that takes some time to learn. I'm sure with autism it is near-impossible.
I still think /s and /j are really the only two tone indicators that are actually useful. /gen /srs /pos and many more are literally so much more natural sounding if you just say “genuinely, I’m happy for you” or “I mean this seriously, what are you doing.” Sometimes communicating less ambiguously just means communicating more
I'd say that context also is much more indicative of positivity, seriousness or genuineness than if your being sarcastic or joking.
Unless they know your writing voice well enough to just say "oh Estarile always follows up sarcastic comments by saying XYZ."
srs is really dumb because isn't the point of tone indicators the assumption that what you said was taken seriously? so wouldn't that just be the default??
Until I read this comment I thought gen stood for generator or general
/srs is pretty commonly used along with /j, but i don't understand why the other two even exists
@@XiaoIsMyHusbandBTW yes, usually, but there are other times where someone said something that people usually interpret as sarcastic when they meant it seriously.
something like:
*reddit is down*
"so stable /srs"
My issue with tone indicators that even in the best intentions they can sometimes come off as extremely infantalizing. I am an autistic person, one time I posted a piece of art to a discord channel and got multiple replies saying something along the lines of "I love this! /pos" and it made me feel like they thought I was too stupid to be able to parse the phrase "I love this!" as a positive comment.
before watching this video i though /pos was like negative and mean “piece of shit”
...it makes me wonder how badly sarcasm-saturated that person was!
I mean, sure, but you have to concede that there are probably some people who might parse that as sarcasm without the positive tone indicator because of low self-esteem. It's infantalizing because it's meant to be obvious to someone who doesn't get it, and I think getting offended that someone used an unnecessary tone indicator is simply not a reasonable reaction.
@@dummydork5744 always thought it was " person of shit "
@@impishlyit9780 but usually sarcasm is indicated so that non sarcastic messages don't have to be because they should be much more common.
I'm also autistic, and I personally use it when I'm being exaggeratory about something genuine.
Ex: I've been giving my friend dating app advice. After one of the bits of advice, I said, "Do what I never could, girl!!" It's way too dramatic for the situation, but I do genuinely want her to learn something from my mistakes. So, this is a time when I would use /hj
This made me feel a huge well of empathy for those with autism. This seems like so many hoops to jump through just to understand what someone is tweeting about. Listening to him describe in detail why /hj is annoying (I'd never really given it much thought, I just understand what it means intuitively) gives me immense second hand frustration. Why indicate the tone if the person who needs it most gets confused and has to go on a wild goose chase (possibly never-ending) just to understand what you mean?!
It feels like the tip of the iceberg. I wish I could donate some of my social intelligence to you ASD folks... /gen
As an autist, I’ve always thought of half joke as “This sentence is an exaggeration of the truth for comedic effect”
also autist here and, yeah same
ya until i saw that this would be burried under 12k comments i was gonna post that i'm pretty sure it's just hyperbole.
Autistic here too, that makes sense. I guess that’s how I think of “just kidding but still”
Yeah that's how I see it as well. Even the example of "I'm going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice" falls under that
They probably are going to buy orange juice, but the joke is that the amount is exaggerated
I understand it as they mean the statement completely sincerely but want to leave a way to back out of it. I wonder if anyone in this comment section isn't on the autistic spectrum (I'm in it too).
As an autistic person I admire your commitment to understanding people... my solution is just accepting I will never fully understand what everyone means
The thing is, that's how it works for non-autistic people too. just to a lesser degree. people are just inherently ambiguous beings - aside from the very most "computer-like" neurodivergent folk, *everyone* operates and communicates with some degree of ambiguity, bias, or predispositions to certain interpretations and etc and they don't even realise it a lot of the time. /hj is ambiguous because "half-joking" is an inherently and *purposefully* ambiguous thing people do. Sometimes it's done as a coping mechanism or mask for your insecurities, sometimes it's used to "probe" your audience and find out how they react to certain kinds of statements, sometimes it's done so you can say something you shouldn't and have plausible deniability, and that last one only works because neurotypical people ALSO aren't sure what it means all the time. It's not a bug, it's a feature. And sometimes it's just straight up misused because people just don't think that deeply about the things they say in general. That orange juice is example shows it being used because yeah, that person was just using words thoughtlessly and wrong - i'm neurotypical and I have NO IDEA what the hell they meant in that paragraph.
I see lots of neurodivergent people who come at this whole problem of understanding social cues and the like as if everyone is, underneath the ambiguous speech patterns and social pleasantries/formalities/etc, a person with clear ideas and intent that is communicating those thoughts as they want them to be perceived. But this is simply not the case.
Same I also have ASD and i believe assuming ambiguity gives ppl benefit of the doubt & cut thru (pre)tension
@kanyetheofficial those absolutely dont ruin the joke, they let you know that it is a joke when it might otherwise seem serious due to the lack of social cues over written text. If /j ruins the joke, then using a joking tone when saying a joke in person would also ruin the joke.
Sarcasm is absolutely *not* supposed to be funny when you're not sure it's sarcasm (unless you're using it as an insult i suppose), that just makes you unsure what a person means. That's why in speech we make sarcasm obvious with tone and inflection. Exclamation marks are not obvious signs of sarcasm either, they're signs of... exclamation. They *can* suggest sarcasm or facetiousness but that depends *highly* on context and subjective perspective. And if i see someone else genuinely suggesting vomiting random emojis onto a post as an indicator of sarcasm im going to have an aneurism
Also edit but i just realised you also suggested caps lock as an indicator of sarcasm or joke and i think that might have just been so absurd my brain just blocked it out for my sanity's sake at first. Because nothing says "sarcasm" than the written shorthand for loudness, anger, or authority. Obviously. Those are the things that i associate with sarcasm for sure..
@@marcog.verbruggen674 I completely forgot to reply when you replied ages ago, but I really appreciate the thought out response and it is kinda comforting to know that at least my communication issues at least can effect everyone too, I've always assumed people without this disorder had a much easier time understanding and communicating
as an autistic person, one of my favorite things to say when i don’t understand is i’ll, out loud say, “i’m gonna pretend i understand.” it’s silly and goofy to most people, and lets them know effectively that i don’t get it, and won’t be spending too much energy on getting it. pretty sweet if you ask me.
I'm autistic too and this frustrates me! I think what this video reveals to me most is that tone indicators can never be truly useful. They're an accessability tool for the neurodivergent, but they will always be primarily used by the neurotypical. The people who define their meaning (through use) can never understand what they are actually doing.
Like if someone just knew that some disabled people need a ramp, but didn't really understand what the ramp is actually used for. They might make it far too steep, or put it out in the middle of nowhere.
I think you are absolutely right in that people should just take to being more verbose. Clarify what you mean with words. Thank you Jan Misali.
THANK YOU SM FOR MAKIG THIS VIDEO istg ive been trng t explain this exact point to people for YEARS and im tired of explaining it again and again (i had an explanation jn my notes app on my old phone to just copy and paste at some point) from now on i can just send this video to people when they ask me why i ask them to please explain what they mean wifh words instead the tone indicators bc they confuse me even more than a normal sentence would. genuinely thank you.
The fact that every comment trying to define "half-joking" is defining it slightly differently from the last only makes me more confident that it doesn't actually mean anything.
but "half-joking" is a thing! It's when you're saying something humorously, but it's also not far from the truth.
The non-committal definition is probably the best definition of “half-joking”. The way I understand how “half-joking” works is “to make a suggestion/statement non-committally, believing that it won’t be taken seriously despite it being an honest suggestion/statement”
Cause a half joke is an absurd statement, it's subjective by nature and depends how you use it.
It really doesn’t, I don’t think I ever really use it outside of my friend groups where we all kinda have an unspoken definition for it becahde we’re all overthinking idiots who can’t form a cohesive thought lol
But before people even used it as a tone indicator in textnit was a phrase used in vocal conversations. You'd say something like "im gonna lose my mind with all of this paperwork! Im only half-joking." Which would imply that you don't intend to lose your mind but you see it as a real possibility.
can you believe this is the first time I've said out loud in a video that I'm autistic
Same
no, it's in your channel description which is kinda part of the videos
@@1e1001 that is text that is not out loud
@@1e1001 i never read channel descriptions so i had no clue
@@1e1001 what 😭
I tend to see /hj with statements like, "If another person is rude at work I'm going to quit on the spot /hj" where the speaker really wants to quit but is afraid of genuinely admitting they want that. The orange juice thing is just confusing
As an autistic pwrson, this video was very opening to see whay my fellow autists see surrounding tone indicators! I wanted to share my thoughts not as a "youre wrong" situation, but to start discussion!
The way ive always interpreted /hj is the idea of "jk, unless..." which your mentioned on your slides, but not in the manner i think about it
I have it go something like this
"Omg, we should totally go to the mall and spend all of our money this weekend /hj" with the /hj being the indicator that it could be a joke if it wasnt neccesary, or could be serious if you were interested
"communication generally involves more than one person" - Jan Misali 2023
he aknowledges 😻😻😻
That statement is, itself, half-joking. In many ways.
@@jonathanccast i guess so, but there should really be a tone tag like "[citation needed]" in randall monroe's book "what if?", meaning "you should take the meaning seriously but the intent is that it's pointless to mention it because it's obvious and that's funny because it's not something you would expect someone to require to mention"
You can communicate with your future self by writing something for you to read later! Like a journal, or notes that you should review.
But whether your present self and future self are different people and therefore "more than one person" is a philosophical question I'm not prepared to defend right now--
@@notwithouttext but deadpan delivery is already the default interpretation for sentences like that anyway
In my experience (as an autistic person), "half-joking" just means "I'm serious (but not entirely literal; IE "the sentiment this expresses is genuine") about this, but phrasing it in a way that's usually reserved for jokes because I'm ashamed that I'm serious about this."
Like, someone will say "I'm about to scream... Half joking, of course." and that means "I'm in serious emotional pain right now, and I need to express that, but I don't feel comfortable enough with [whomever this is being said to] to actually talk about it", which... Well, maybe it's just because I'm autistic, but I can't formulate a response to that.
I usually interpret it as basically meaning "There is truth to this, but I'm exaggerating for humor", like "Gonna do all the homework at 11:59 on the due date"
I often read it this way too. Like I feel like the orange juice example could mean "I am going to buy a lot of orange juice. Not quite an absurd amount, but an embarrassingly large amount of orange juice. So I'm framing this as a joke so I feel less embarrassed"
@@vibaj16 but that's...what a joke is inherently?
@@staceyvanderlaan1905 how much is absurd ? and that doesn't make it a half joke. it's still more like/gen or /serious
that's exactly how i use it. very usefull... to me
I feel like you're like me. I got sick of not understanding people's attitude when communicating with me, so I studied linguistics and etymology to get better at understanding people. I get to the point where my Autism isn't obvious to people anymore, so I feel in myself that I don't notice my own Autism. The only time it rears its ugly head is when someone says something as a joke and I will not for the life of me understand it. FML.
you explained the 3 main ways people use /hj perfectly. and i agree, the uses are inherently contradictory making it just more difficult than helpful. You literally have to know the person, the way they talk, their beliefs, and how they feel about certain people or things to interpret /hj correctly which makes it completely unhelpful and unclear when talking to a random stranger online which is usually when tone tags are used in the first place. I love the way you explain things and your thought process makes so much sense to me.
The way I interpret /hj, and regularly use it, is "I'm exaggerating a little bit for the sake of humor, but for the most part this is how I genuinely feel". It lets me get my point across without having to be so blunt and up-front with my feelings, since I'm usually a bit too open for my comfort.
EDIT: Okay turns out I paused literally 20 seconds before the definitions were explained
But... that's just a hyperbole no? Wouldn't calling it one be much less ambiguous?
hyperbole
noun
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
ngl i just use /hj when i say something super forward and flirty because it works great as a failsafe
@@tatri292 I think hyperbole can be more broad where in this context, hj is a way to communicate passive aggressive feelings. This is how I use hj too and I see it as passive aggressive most often.
@@FeyPax you're commenting on a video talking about how loosely /hj is defined. Suddenly you realize this.
Care for another try?
@@tatri292 The problem is there is a part to interpret literally. The whole thing isn't hyperbole - to use the example, a large amount of orange juice is literally being bought - but the reality is framed with a joke.
this is why i love the way Tumblr's "(derogatory)" meme became a form of tone indication on there. i've used it everywhere since i found it cause it's just a much better tone indicator system than the / system.
me and my friends use it and "(endearing)" a lot, so very useful
It's also inherently easier to understand since it involves writing out the entire word rather than expecting people already be familiar with the abbreviations.
Better in every single way … clearer AND way funnier AND you aren’t forcing people to remember 10000 million (hyperbole) combos of vague characters… , but in limited character count places /(whatever) tone tags are … okay.
Yes, that's what I've been doing more often! :D
yeah i just go JK JK IM JK afterwards when i say something out of pocked on purpose
The semantic problem that post-ironic sensibilities provoked by metamodern media create
I absolutely agree with your point on just how inconvenient it is to abbreviate these. Introducing a new, unclear lexicon for the sake of "clarity" was deeply frustrating, and every so often I'll still see people include one I haven't yet memorized, and that I now need to look up online if I want to try and identify what it is they're trying to express. At that point - having been presented with a scavenger hunt I need to complete in order to tell what people are saying - I usually just give up and write off the entire sentence I can no longer confidently parse.
Which would be fine, really. Maybe this is what getting old and not being able to keep up with slang is like - I don't need to understand every single thing everyone ever says. It's not like things like "iderca" ("I don't even really care anymore") were any clearer back when they and other more complicated online shorthand started getting used - and even "lol" or "lmao" are incoherent unless you're already in the know. I just think these ones are so much more frustrating because they ostensibly exist *for* clarity and accessibility, they're just terrible at it. Like putting a wheelchair-accessible bathroom at the top of a staircase, the intent is recognizably there, but the execution is deeply lacking.
/genuine
I never knew how entertaining it would be to watch someone algorithmically dissect the meaning of a joke
Type 5 Paradox did me in
Half-joke, no?
He's half joking guys
holy crap 1k likes on a comment?!?!?!??! second time in my life lesgooo 😎
This must be what Spanish speakers refer to as "era de chill" (it was of chill).
in my opinion, it feels like /hj is just used when someone has an opinion but they're scared to fully commit with it so they hide behind it being "partly serious"
here's the math:
"i really liked this video" + "i feel like the people I'm talking to won't, but if they do that would be awesome" = "this is the best cat video of all time /hj"
fr that was my interpretation lol
that is also my interpretation
This is also my interpretation!!!
Yeah I agree, from my perspective as a neurotypical person half joking is when you say something serious in a joking way.
So I could say "of course, I'm always right /hj" which is said like a joke but I actually kind of believe the underlying sentiment.
That's almost like it's EXACTLY what it's for
i love at 12:21 this makes sense, like theyre realizing its stupid and are now trying to convince themselves it does infact make sense
Every single word of this felt like an uninvited window into my brain when somebody asks a poorly phrased question like "do you want to help [whatever task] with me?"
No, of course not! It's a task I'd rather not do right now, and quite honestly my answer to this question is no! But! I can't just SAY no, because it'll sound like I'm refusing to help, even though I wasn't asked to help, I was asked if I would WANT to help, which I don't want to, although I don't want to be rude either. If this person wants my help, why not ask directly for it, instead of asking if I'd want to, when the answer is obviously no?
I usually say "no, but I will anyway"
@@zestmasterLemonpeople tend to prefer « I don’t mind »
I'm autistic and tone indicator's annoy me a lot of the time, I know some people who use it after every sentence and use it in places where the tone is extremely obvious and make me use it in those situations and it makes me feel like a child
ah yes the kindergarten teacher tone of voice
Yup, it's an accessibility tool being used in an ableist way there
tone indicators are helpful sometimes but when they use it on a sentence where the tone is obvious it just seems infantilizing
As an autistic person aswell, i love using them as jokes.
@@sammakesmusic1 thats very true /sers
i am so glad that Absurd Amount Of Orange Juice discourse lives on all these years later
The idea of this discussion being had for many years amuses me as an outsider
As someone outside tumblr, is this another "New Radio Shows?"?
i drink a normal amount of orange juice /ambiguous
An absurd amount of discourse
Wait, @EtchJetty , were YOU the anon?? [0_0]
I kind of see /hj like when you say something really serious over text and you put “lol” at the end to make it less heavy
Long time fan, first time commenter. Well probably first time. Also, more conlangs please. But to the point....
I'm a neurotypical, and I also have an analytical bent of mind. I might be just slightly "on the spectrum" but I don't have to do nearly the explicit analysis that you describe. Most times, I "flash" on social cues, and sometimes that flash returns ambiguous interpretations. N/Ts also get confused and puzzled by social cues, it's just faster and less often. (It also happens when visiting other cultures, where social cues have a different "vocabulary" and I've experienced this problem as well and it's very much as you describe it in your native culture).
Overall Iagree entirely with your analysis, but what you might be missing is this: "half-jokes" are INTENDED to either force this analysis (forcing you to think more deeply about these possibilities) or, alternately, to ask. It forces attention, while passive-aggressively suggesting that it isn't.
Is it considerate? No, but trying to make other people think isn't always received as considerate. Your videos typically try to make your viewers think about your topic, and I'm sure you've realized that they don't always appreciate this!!
This introduces what I will designate possible meaning #0; a metameaning. "I'm going to confuse you on purpose and hope to escape while you recover from this confusion." That's right, possible meaning #0 is the purely distractive value of the exercise; the whole point is to throw you off balance and make you look at the shiny thing.
Now, I will actually reach a conclusion. No kidding.
Your analysis about #1 vs #2 (including the fact that they're about equally probable), and the rarer #3, #4, and implication of numbers up to n is right on, exactly correct, these are the possibilities. One fairly common one that you overlooked is mislabeled sarcasm, not that this helps - if anything it just makes the ambiguities even worse.
BUT BUT BUT!!! It's NEARLY ALWAYS #0 at the same time. If you spend significant time or give great attention (even in a flash) to analyzing it.... #0 WORKED ON YOU.
Sorry, but the thing that pisses you off is put there in large part for the purpose of pissing you off. You've been played.
Friendly advice: Ignore the whole /hj post and respond to the preceding convo as if the /hj post never happened. You might dismiss it with a lol, acknowledging that somewhere in there is half a joke, but in reality saying no more than this: I'm not confused, I'm not looking at the shiny thing, this convo continues uninterrupted despite your attempt to derail it.
as an autistic person, /hj has never been a problem for me personally, because I've always interpreted it as "kind of" or exaggeration for comedic effect, and I've almost always been able to tell the two apart with ease. Surely there's a better way of making that apparent (like, literally saying "kind of") but it works for me and my friends. I think there might be a tone indicator for exaggerating..? I honestly should start using that. edit: apparently there is and it's /hyp for hyperbole. I didn't even know of the word "hyperbole" prior to this so it makes sense I wasn't aware of that one (english is not my first language.)
in my case as an autistic person me and my friends seemingly use it as a way to express asking for consent or opinion on something. atleast thats how i interpret it. example “im gonna send this embarrassing photo to my friend /hj” meaning they want to but only if you are ok with it. if you arent then they can say it was a joke anyways
i usually use /lh (light hearted) for exagérations (serious intent, joking interpretation), but i don’t know if this has the same issue as /hj ?
the fun thing is hyperbole is a specific type of exageration but not every type of exageration is hyperbole. The only consistent information gained is that it shouldn't be taken literally imho. So even "I am going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice" with /hyp or /exa I don't know if the person is going to buy a normal amount of orange juice or none whatsoever. Maybe it was hyperbole for how thirsty they are, sometimes context helps but not always. People have different feelings associated with each of those indicators but they still aren't universal experiences.
This is exactly how I interpreted it. "I'm going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice. h/j" just means that their gonna buy like 2 things of orange juice and are joking. It's really not that difficult to understand, I'm sorry. I'm autistic too and it's very clear that they're simply not buying an ABSURD amount, just a bit more than normal and are joking about it.
I’m also autistic, but half joking sounds super sarcastic to me and sort of rude, that or it feels like I’m being condescended, then again all tone indicators make me feel condescended personally /hj is just the one that frustrates me the most
I remember being in a discord server once where using tone indicators was a rule. As an autistic person Ive never had more confusing and ambiguous social interactions anywhere than that server
a rule? did you have to use an indicator in every message..?
Wow that's ridiculous and totally not unhelpful at all
as an autistic person that it literally the stupidest idea i have ever heard of... making rules about the way you have to communicate will always make sincere communication harder because it's being influenced by this weird outside element that says "NO YOU GOTTA SAY IT DIS WAY >:( "
Do you have any examples? Just curious, sounds like there could be some funny stuff there
@@stephendonovan9084 just imagine, "iM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU /srs /th /gtfo"
I see /s as a backup. The hope is that people will interpret what you've said in the way intended, but if not (given this is the internet), you've got it there to subtly clarify at the end without having to ruin the effect and write out "sarcasm" in full
for me, /hj is something i interpret as a joke rooted in truth. like, saying you hate someone as a half joke, because you don’t actually hate them, but you aren’t on the best of terms
if someone ever said to me “i hate you /hj” i think i would never want to interact with that person again
While I agree with "a joke rooted in truth", I would consider that example as hyperbole, unless the "hate" is actually supposed to be funny instead of just an exaggeration or a desire to get your feelings out.
I went from "He's severely overthinking this" to "No, he's right" in ten minutes, great stuff
I crossed that threshold at 6 minutes. I'm not even on the spectrum and I don't get why "half-joking" is a thing. It to me sounds like a shield for when someone wants to say something seriously, but is afraid of being judged for it, so they smokescreen it as a joke to get around it.
Honestly, "severely overthinking" is the baseline for many autistics. We have to constantly be on watch for obscure rules that most people don't even think about... and then we stumble upon issues within in the rules that essentially nobody's thought about. (It's for this reason I detest most forms. The questions are worded terribly and if there's limited options it's even worse. I keep wishing I could be let loose on them to improve them.)
@@willofthewinds3222 That's basically it. Half-joking is a way to express your ideas while keeping the option of hiding behind humor open. It's used when you're wary of the sort of reaction you'll get. It's effectiveness wildly varies, as sometimes you'll get the complete opposite of the desired result.
@@Ricardoromero4444 What is sounds like to me is cowardice. If you mean it as a joke, then clarify that its a joke. If you are being serious, then mean it. /serious
even if he was overthinking thats what a lot of neurodivergent/autistic people just do naturally including myself so lol
as a neurotypical person i interpret "im going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice /hj" as them saying they're gonna buy a lot of orange juice but not enough to actually be absurd but that's where the joke part comes from where they say that it is absurd
As a neurodivergent person that was also my takeaway
That joke would at best get a slightly harsh nose exhale
As an autistic person, I thought so too. But I don't understand how that would ever be funny, so why not just say that you're going to buy a normal amount of orange juice? I just don't understand that sentence anymore once /hj is attached to it.
@@29..47maybe it’s like some sort of in-between for a “normal amount” vs “absurd?” Like 20 gallons is a bit absurd, but 5 isn’t really a “normal” amount?
@@29..47 maybe we can get another example. lets say there's a video of someone saying something absurd, and someone responds with "i'm gonna scream /hj". its in the sense of "im not gonna scream out loud, but now i really want to" maybe? i saw this example in some other comment, maybe it'll help
@@sketchstudios345 I think that I get what it means, but I still don't understand the point of it. I don't understand why someone complicate what they mean instead of just saying that they want to scream. It seems like someone wants to say "I want to scream", but they are changing it to "I'm going to scream" just so that they can add /hj to it.
i can't even make a comment because you went through everything i could possibly comment about in the video already. good video.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about accessibility feature vs internet slang. People like to say that they're for accessibility, but in my experience they're commonly used as internet slang, and if they're used even a little bit as internet slang then that renders them useless for accessibility.
By far my favorite use of tone indication is the (affectionate)/(derogatory) distinction, because in addition to disambiguating words and phrases that could be compliments or insults depending on the intent and context, e,g, "this is the most autistic video essay on the internet (affectionate)," it can also be used for humorous effect to imply that the speaker has some strong opinion about things that you wouldn't normally expect someone to have strong opinions about, e.g. "I am putting on shoes (derogatory)," or to reverse the meaning of a word or phrase that normally has a fairly unambiguous meaning, e.g. "Guel Jeturk is such a useless fucking bastard (affectionate)," which I also think is a very funny thing to do.
I like this because it feels like a Wikipedia article and i think it'd be really funny to have an article like "CM Punk(derogatory)"
100%. i have a note on someone i talk to regularly online that's just "duck lover (derogatory)" bc he spams duck emoji and its such a helpful distinction lol
Hellsite (affectionate) and Hellsite (derogatory)
only problem is that this adds an extra layer of complexity that would be very bad for clarity, not that its not funny tho
I absolutely love the bracketed full word tone indicators they are my beloved (affectionate)
They allow remixing language for poetic oxymorons in ways that without them, _even spoken language_ wouldn't be clear about. They extend potential use cases of nouns and adjectives, and even if you're using them with matching words like I did, the extra emphasis helps sell the degree to which your opinion on something is strong. They're a really funky tool that allows doing even more with language in a way that the standardized tone indicators can't do because of having to be standardized. If I say /srs, all it does is convey that I am serious. But if I start using (adored), (appreciated), (lovestruck), it conveys both the seriousness _and_ the intensity of the sentiment!
As an autistic guy, I have attempted to use tone indicators and have found that it’s much easier to just clarify later if it becomes an issue. For example (albeit a heavily exaggerated one), saying “I’m gonna go throw pool noodles into your room at 3 am” is much funnier without a /j at the end. At least personally, I start focusing on the tone indicator instead of the joke. Also, my opinion on /hj is, I’ve seen it once and immediately went “wait, what? Like, how? What’s that supposed to mean?” And then 10 minutes later I was recommended this video.
Agreed, not autistic( I don’t think at least) but time indicators ruin the mood for me tbh. I have a hard time understanding tone sometimes but I would just be like “ wait are you joking or?” Or “ do you mean that genuinely?” Like idk it’s just weird to me if someone were to be like “ omg I’m so sorry your grandma died /gen” like yeah I fucking hope it’s genuine
Yes, I think it might be more funny because imagining someone ACTUALLY doing that is hilariously random and somewhat cursed. Also, same. I saw /hj and didn’t know what the person was saying, then saw this video lol
@@Nic0Dr4ws i love ur pfp
yeah I'm autistic too and if I really care about the tone of a message, I'll just ask. I find it easier
@@mouthwaterin ty
I find it unreasonably hilarious that this has been a subject occupying so much of your mind space for so long. Legit was laughing the whole video, you're not even wrong A+
I legitimately started laughing my ass off at 16:39 that's a PERFECT example 😂😂 this was a really interesting video, as a guy who's frequently very sarcastic and doesn't use any tone indicators I didn't know /hj was even a thing but I intuitively understand the intent of it when I see it, and simultaneously I fully understand why you don't because you explain it so logically. looking forward to seeing more of your videos /hj
(sorry I couldn't resist)
i like how tumblr has started using things like (affectionate) and (derogatory) even if its used sarcastically sometimes, at least you dont have to learn a bunch of abbreviations for it
and sometimes they're actually funny
I much prefer those things over tone indicators
Yes I'm not a tumblr user but I enjoy the use of [JOKE]. I feel like it adds to the funny
@@PH0B0PH1L1A in my defense my brain categorizes things that happened within the last few years as "recent". deltarune came out recently. so did undertale. so did owl house what do you mean its getting cancelled didn't that just come out Recently? also ive been on tumblr since 2015ish so if its post-superwholock era for me its recent in my brain. apologies
Your fat (affectionate)
jan Misali trying to figure out the meaning of "i am going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice /hj" is the highlight of my day
edit: sorry to be that person but this is the first time something like this has happened... MAMA I'M FAMOUS~ ✨️✨️✨️
yes
I do not know which one that means either.
i think that would mean that theyre buying orange juice but just a normal amount
@@graelmirI thought they were buying much more orange juice than normal but not enough to be an "absurd" amount
@@viniciusgoulart5077 that was my understanding but this just proves jan Misali's point.
Bro, I remember exactly where I watched your videos. Like this one, I started in an intersection besides the train station.
And the one about the imperial system, close to my old house to visit a friend.
I watched this video months ago, and it actually made me lose trust in my own intuitive understanding of /hj. I stopped using it at all and began overthinking it.
I think /hj ends up being like very person-based, like sarcasm. Just identifying when something isn’t being entirely serious (even if there are many different ways it can be unserious) and fitting this against the class of unserious ness that the person using it tends to is helpful to me.
Even though I suppose we have pretty different feelings on this, I love this video! It’s extremely well written, and unpacks it in a very helpful way.
I find the tumblr-ish way of putting a tone in parenthesis afterward a much easier way to convey tone. like if I say "Bastard (affectionate)" instead of "Bastard/hj" it makes much more sense that what I'm trying to say is meant to be endearing and not taken seriously, but also partially true. Usually I'd say it to a friend or pet that sometimes gets on my nerves but I love them for that. It's also not perfect but it's how I usually get my point across since I'm very bad at finding the words I actually want to use and instead find an approximation of what is in my head. Autism feels to me like trying to sift boulders through a pasta strainer and if I say my intended meaning or tone it works much better than some vague letters that can't be as specific as I need.
bastard/hj never makes sense,
Because if they want to mean it endearing
People should just be using /j
It's not serious and it's kinda funny, so it's a joke.
@@BramLastname | Bastard /j could be implying that they aren’t really a bastard though. Bastard (affectionate) makes it clear that they are a bastard but that them being a bastard is not necessarily a negative trait but rather a charming one.
@@slitherysnake2711 Well first of all,
Personally I'd just say "You little Bastard" without any indicator,
Secondly, if I knew someone well enough to call them a bastard affectionately
They'd understand what I meant with /j.
@@BramLastname | Oh, I assumed this also included when people talked about characters and such because the original comment mentioned tumblr-like messages & I see that type of labeling used mostly on posts not directed towards a real person or directed towards a person who is not being directly talked to 😭
If it’s a friend then they probably understand what you mean tho yeah 💀
I never put it together that the “(affectionate)” thing is also a tone indicator, but you’re right, and I very much agree! The flexibility is way better.
I’ve also heard my fellow autistic friends use that format when speaking out loud, because it’s also super helpful for getting across the information that we might not be successfully communicating with our faces/tone/etc. Saying something like “that character is so pathetic, affectionate” is much clearer to me
After much deliberation I have decided that "I'm gonna buy an absurd amount of orange juice /hj" means "I really want to buy an absurd amount of orange juice, but I probably won't" with about 80% confidence.
Idk, I like the interpretation of “I’m gonna buy a somewhat large but not entirely unreasonable amount of orange juice.”
See, I was thinking they were gonna buy the orange juice, but it wasn't going to be an absurd amount.
+
Yeah. That they really are going to buy some orange juice, and they want to buy a huge amount, but will probably just buy somewhat a lot.
yeah i think its they are only going to buy some orange juice
Tone indicators absolutely make me so upset online, because like...I have spent 20 years just learning the already existing rules of the English language in order to properly communicate. You can't just throw a whole new system on me and expect me to just know what it means. That's not accessibility, that literally makes it HARDER for me to communicate. Especially because I feel like the internet had already kind of figured out how to express tone across text for the most part. Emphasis comes through italics or all caps, which can help clarify tone, and I LOVE the whole spongebob meme form of sarcasm. It's genuinely easier for me to interpret "yEaH i LiKe ThAt" as sarcasm because the text follows the pitch variation of exaggerated sarcasm.
This whole new system is baffling to me because most of the time when I see it, my brain doesn't think "how can I interpret this text in an auditory sense to best match it to tone in oral communication" like I do with other ways of phrasing text online. My brain thinks "was this a typo? what does this word mean? what is this meant to be short for that would make sense in the context of this sentence? is it slang I haven't heard? Is it a reference to something I've never watched or read? how does this make sense at all in the context of what they're trying to say? What extra layer of communication am I missing here?"
It's not pleasant, it's not helpful, and most of the time it does the opposite of what it's "intended" to do. Why are we using j when jk already exists and was more clear? Why does gen mean genuine when gen is ALREADY a common abbreviated of general? Pos is ABSOLUTELY just piece of shit. Honestly I think the only people this would even moderately help are younger autistic people who haven't learned the original system yet.
...then again, I am autistic and hate change and now they're trying to change the whole language that I use, so that could be part of the issue as well lol
I ain't readin allat/srs
Any time I read "/pos" I will always respond with "aww don't call yourself a piece of shit!" just to be facetious. I'm so sick of tone indicators myself. I'm already trying to learn two other languages along with my own (as slang changes everyday!), I don't need to learn some outdated and unnecessary "tone indication" system that hasn't helped anyone at all.
SAY JK OR SAY NOTHING AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!
partially agree but the pitch variation example you mentioned is inaccessible for people with screenreaders
This video made me understand that I take most things written online or spoken offline as something people say seriously unless it's made clear that they don't mean it like that. And now I see that tone indicators are just part of the internet slang and they're not that useful, though, I didn't look at them as an accessibility tool from the beginning
I think hj is mostly used as like "this is meant to be taken lightly, so dont try and read into it too much"
Yea same. I haven't seen it used too often, but I've always thought of it as "it's not that deep even though there's more to it." Overanalyzing kind of defeats the purpose of it haha. I do get how it can be confusing though
then we should just use /ttl for take this lightly lmaaoo
The fuck is /ttl I be reading it as tittle
/ttl sounds like you want what you read to be for hard of hearing people or deaf people.
So joking?
I have only seen /hj used in flirting, where they are being serious about an offer to date someone or saying something risky, but are using /hj to offer the person they're flirting with an out, essentially "I'm being serious, but if you don't feel the same way, you're welcome to interpret this as a joke"
jk jk unless 🥺
as an aro/ace person (that also doesn't socialize much) this baffles me, like why would you need to give them an out? isn't that the point of flirting, to politely and non-directly ask if someone is interested in you? or are you saying that /hj can literally mean "i am flirting, are you interested?"?
that’s the worst actually, because how am i supposed to know they’re serious. what if i’m interested but it turns out the romantic part was what they were joking about? what if i don’t know that the part that is serious is that they’re flirting and i miss the subtext completely (。。)
@@bluecheetah001 quite frankly a lot of people flirt without the intention of it meaning youre "interested" in moving things further. And giving someone an "out" can be just as simple as leaving the conversation open without pushing them in a direction directly. It can give them space.
That's the third meaning
as another person on the spectrum, I really enjoyed the description of how you go through possible interpretations of the sentence later in the video, mainly because most of the possibilities you mentioned really wouldn't even pop to my own conscious mind organically, but having heard the options listed like that, they still sounded like perfectly intuitive things to consider.
that aside, just to throw my two cents in or however the saying goes, I think as you kind of mentioned, the main intention of calling something a "half-joke" is specifically to obfuscate how serious the speaker is about the thing they said (read: they don't want to be held accountable for what they said). it's by definition supposed to be an indication that the speaker does not want the reader(/listener) to take them seriously, on the off-chance that they'll find it somehow objectionable, even if they were in fact 100% serious about what they said.
Also I think whatever the random person on tumblr was trying to convey, their "absurd amount of orange juice" analogy was just a really bad example even if they did have some kind of a valid point in mind.
p.s. the first time I heard of tone indicators was so far into my time on the internet that my gut reaction was to assume people were just being ironic with their usage, both because what a novel and clearly communicated concept it was and because even to this day, I only ever see people talk sarcastically on the internet without any indicators except maybe the context, if it can actually tell anything (in which case, hey, it's basically like tagging their comment with /hj because nobody will know if they actually meant it until someone calls them out on it and they decide then and there how to frame it) or the kinds of posts that are super clear sarcasm even to me with just a sole post without any further context necessary, that go like "wow, I'm SO happy that it happened to rain on the concert day 🙄 /s" or whatever
I started the video thinking "oh i know what half-joking means but i want to see why they think it's worse than useless" and by the end i thought "wow i don't know what half joking is"
i love listening to smart people talk about completely random things
Considering it's about tone indicators I wouldn't say smart
@@LogShaw1587it is smart though, it's founded and researched, just about an otherwise very dumb topic☠️
@@LogShaw1587whats dumb about trying to convey tone through text?
@@averagetwink. no hate to gay people but I'm not gonna argue with someone who has twink in their name
@@LogShaw1587 how's it dumb? the topic may be, but it is very well researched and presented
Never ran into /hj before and was really confused on how handjobs could be a tone.
"I'm feeling great right now /hj"
😂
This video comes up on my feed again every once in a while. And not being a user of tone markers myself, I’ll have completely forgotten about the concept. So my brain just goes “oh cool a jan Misali video? …about handjobs? Oh right”
The fact that you used the same example for all three perfectly encapsulates your point. It also boiled my blood cause it didn't add any extra meaning that might me understand. Which is your point, but how dare you. I'm also autistic and I'm so glad I found this video
Great video. Also for the record on that orange juice example I'm 100% sure they're using it redundantly, the "absurd" conveys what they mean and it's a terrible example (I have no idea what a good example would be, your video has convinced me there probably isn't one)
when I see /hj I literally just tell myself not to think too deep into the meaning of it
As an autistic person I find it easier to just not care too much what people are trying to say
@@MMMaple lol yeah good idea
@@MMMapleThat’s how you should do it. Half the time people don’t actually mean anything behind the things they’re saying anyways
@@ZeroRelevance easier said than done. A lot of ppl are very inclined to know everything and to know what others mean about them. It’s still difficult to not care it’s an active process not something that comes naturally but I agree sometimes it is better not to give it too much thought
Imo it just means to not take it at face value but take it at shoulder value
I love the Hand Job tone indicator. It clarifies whether what you're saying is an invitation for a hand job
real
when I first saw /hj I thought "hand job", which makes more sense than "half-joking". I think half-joking is a nonsense concept. Either I'm joking or I'm not.
I've never seen anyone explain and exhibit so intricately and accurately the exact process I go through when unsure of how to interpret people's meaning and intent...
I hate pretty much all abbreviations of anything, because if you don't already know what it means then you have to either ask or just be completely oblivious. Also, from the side of using abbreviations you save little to no time typing/saying it, and if someone asks you, you have to explain anyways and it loses all purpose. (I know this is kind of unrelated to the video but it was mentioned so I'm saying it anyways)
The way I interpret the "im going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice /hj" sentence is that the person is literally going to buy an irregular amount of orange juice (2-3 gallons or something similar) but since they think that the mental imagery of buying an absurd amount of orange juice is funny they expand the amount of orange juice they say they are going to buy in a hyperbolic sense (an absurd amount, which would be like 10-20 gallons)
Agreed, as someone who doesn't use a whole lot of tone indicators and doesn't see them used, that's(assuming I knew /hj meant / half joking) how I'd take it.
I love when ppl use /hj this way cuz it makes it so much funnier
I guess it can sort of decrease the severity of a statement while still maintaining its truth.
Yeah pretty much how i view it
The way I interpreted it was "I'm going to buy orange juice, but the joke is what if i bought 100 bottles of it" since peoples definition of /hj and definition of "absurd amount" are different as abstract concepts, it makes it difficult
I feel like "half-joking" generally applies to situations where one doesn't feel comfortable expressing certain thoughts, and hints at the truth behind a mask of humor. For example saying "wow that old car is sadder than I am /hj" would indicate a self-deprecating joke that hides genuine feelings of low self-esteem
This is just usage 1 from the video, no? The statement is a joke but the sentiment is true.
the problem with this is that stating you're half joking is outright saying that you are feeling down, thus entirely removing the point of masking w/humor at all.
@@jessehunter362 without the abbreviation it would probably sound a bit too serious and self depricating.
@@jessehunter362 It indicates that the statement is to be taken seriously, but not as something that is actionable, i.e. I want to communicate the sentiment that I'm a sad and miserable person, but I don't want you to respond to that communication
**screaming**
GOD DAMNIT ANOTHER MEANING
(i am not mad at you i just struggle with communication and multiple definitions confuse me)
I've never thought of tone indicators as just for accessibility. A substantial amount of verbal communication relies on tone. That is very difficult to achieve through text using only words. Thats why there are so many people correcting people and getting "whooosh"ed because the words alone dont make it clear enough that they are joking/being sarcastic. You dont have to have ASD to have difficulty interpreting tone through text.
I'm autistic and have never thought of tone indicators being used as an accessibility tool: I've always thought of it like "I'm going to use /s so I don't get people replying to me thinking I'm serious and annoying me by telling me what an awful person I am".
The meaning of a half-joke kept feeling intuitive to me, but every time you dove into explaining what it actually implies my vision started swimming and my brain started questioning everything I ever knew.
What infuriated me most is that none of his "interpretations" of the orange juice example is the correct one. The correct one is that the speaker is doing comedy by exaggeration.
1) He is going to buy orange juice (true)
2) He is going to buy a lot (true)
3) The amount is *large* (say, two gallons) but not actually *absurd* (twelve tanker trucks full?) so exaggerating the amount is the joking part.
So the sentence is "true", just not "literally true". I.e., half joking.
Or, as become the norm these days, to mark the non-literal part with "literally" to indicate the joke. :P
@@ZapAndersson this is the best explanation i've seen so far!
@@ZapAnderssonHow do you know that that is the correct one?
@@justanscvit just makes sense
@@nourriadh6976 Wow, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe he’s just right! What a great defense! /s
the barely restrained rage in the orange juice segment is a prime example of the quality content that keeps me coming back /serious
I had to keep checking my settings to make sure I hadn't accidentally set the playback speed to 2x
/hj
Ben shapiro vibes
@@bahlalthewatcher4790 I did put it on 2x and they sounded like a chipmunk
i wrote a comment like 3 months ago or something about how i couldn't even make an actual comment about the concept of "half-joking" because everything was already addressed, and that's still basically true because what i'm about to say is very related to what you said in the video, but while i was rewatching today i could feel that i wanted to say something, and it ended up being a lot more than it started as. it isn't really supposed to be helpful, just my own personal thoughts, but i guess it could potentially be.
i personally believe that "half-joking" as a term _started out_ with the express purpose of being unclear - like, to me, the first few times i saw it, that's basically what it was to me, because every time i talked to someone who used the term (not even talking about /hj) they just didn't seem like they wanted me to know what they meant. indeed, this is your 3rd definition of /hj, plus it's also my own specific interpretation of "half-joking," which is why i said this was basically addressed - you defined my interpretation, and said everyone has their own.
i think there's more to say about /hj3, though. there's a number of reasons why they wouldn't want me to know - waiting for a response, not sure if it's true, still wondering whether to do something related, don't want me to be sure, even for no reason, etc - and those are mostly valid for me, but it's unclear by nature and by that point i have to figure out which reason it is by talking further. "/hj" further complicates things because "/hj" is distinct from "half-joking" _to me_ in that it's (usually...) being used in an attempt to make something more clear, which makes it much more likely to be one of the first 2 definitions, forming a tree of meaning that is very large for something specifically meant to make things more clear. half-joking in its full form also has a non zero chance of meaning /hj1 or /hj2, just like "/hj", so it's entirely possible it was just a "simpler" communication solution for me to always interpret it as intentionally unclear - 1, it being unclear is something i won't bother reading between the lines for, and therefore it _can_ mean the other two. 2, /hj1 and /hj2 boil down to "this is true"/"this is ultimately not a joke" or "this is not true"/"this is ultimately a joke" for me, and i can usually figure out which of those it is WITHOUT "/hj," and if i can't, i can ask.
this, of course, as the title states, makes it clear that /hj as a clarification tool is worse than useless - and this brings me to the last conclusion i had while having a good think about this, which is that i now believe that /hj was added to the tone indicator pool as an actual indicator of tone. IF you don't have any type of issue communicating, it is possible to use inflection and pacing to let the person you're talking to know you're not only making a joke, but not being fully clear whether you're joking. this is probably harder to notice than sarcasm, both in real life and through text, which makes it sad that this could have had a real use (edit: the "real use" being "clarifying the intent" of being unclear instead of clarifying the deeper intent) if we lived in an idealistic world where everyone had the same definition of "half-joking."
that's all
Exactly my thoughts!! Tone indicators have made things so much more confusing for me. I like to joke and I like to be silly, but I also like to clarify what I mean so people aren't out of the loop, and tone indicators are the worst way to do that.
my (not autistic) sibling sent me a chart of what had to be at least a hundred tone indicators, some of which used the same EXACT letter, and others meaning the same exact thing.
tone indicators as accessibility tools become useless when they get that complex, because if a person has to take extensive time to understand or memorize what people are saying, that means things are LESS accessible. using the iconic tumblr adjective in parentheses is more successful because that's something that is always clear and anyone can comprehend.
Like (derogatory)? Lmao I just find those hilarious for no good reason, I think there's certain useful ones like: /gen, /srs, /hj (though I haven't watched the video yet so I'll see if my mind), /j, /s, /neg, /pos and beyond that they probably get redundant or unhelpful
anything done on the internet will eventually get redundant and overly complex, what bothers me the most is when people use /srs on sentences that have literally NO ambiguity. Sentences that in no context could literally ever mean anything else.
Just say "lol" to make things less serious. It's all that's needed lmao
Y'know, the :-) emoticon was first invented basically as a tone indicator for when someone was joking. It's a very funny story of miscommunication, you should look it up! But it shows that this problem has been around since the dawn of the internet (and even before). I feel like emojis can still kinda be used as tone indicators in this way, but :) can mean so many things that it's not as clear as /j or something.
Yeah, and it expands on just how many ways you can adorn your sentence (positive)! Pretty much any adjective! And you don't even need to create an entire code for the meaning to be understood
In my experience tone indicators aren't an accessibility tool for the reader, but a shield for the writer against interpretations they'd rather avoid. In that context a purposefully ambiguous tone indicator makes perfect sense.
very good point!
Tone Indicators are an accessibility tool /hj
I feel like this absolutely nails how /hj is used
Yeah ive seen many people say things but then add /j, as if it turns their awful statement Funny
@@owenbridgers lmao ok you're so right though
i will never be able to catch on to /pos it confuses me every time and then i google it and then i forget
oops i used /s to mean strikethrough, i’ve had people ask me what i meant but no one told me the canonical meaning ,-,
This feels like the tone indicator version of the phrase "there's a grain of truth behind every joke".
"and in this particular instance, the grain is more like a big clump"
@@holdingpattern245 *They're just racist
I'm going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice /hj means that they are going to buy an absurd amount of orange juice, but they think it's funny that they are going to do that. It's a form of modern meta-irony boiled down to its purest form. It's intentionally ambigious as you arn't sure how much of their orange-juice buying is ironic, and how much is sincere. It's ironic and sincere at the same time. Which is why meta-irony is so hard to get for neurodivergent people, it's an illogical vibe, that's the point.
In this case I think said grain is Rice, Although oftentimes it's Maize.
@@thegrandnil764 I as a neurotypical person have very strong opinions on meta-irony humor. The logical extreme (and this does happen) is that, when no one can tell who's serious or joking, and on what level of irony they're on if it is a joke, there is no difference between serious or joking - they're the same thing. I *hate* it, and I *hate* it when people use it.
the jan Misali channel is the only channel we can name that will, without prompting, drop an 18 minute video essay about something, and we're already on board for it before we even realized it was incoming
He just is objectively right, but proves it too
fredrik knudsen
If you follow them on tumblr you’d have seen this one coming
@@grant9637 - don't worry! we do exactly that
@@tetsuoumezawa5833 I did not know I was interested in naval warfare before that last video
idk if it's just me (i hope this doesn't sound mean or anything) but i've found tone tags super helpful in online discussion (i'm autistic too for context)!! It mainly breaks down to three points:
1) easy-to-understand -- i find tone indicators really easy to understand because I just apply the tone to the sentence! for example, the sentence "i *hate* cats" can have two meanings:
A) strong disdain for cats
OR
B) asterisks used as a way to emphasise the fact that OP is joking/lying.
If the sentence is written as "i *hate* cats /s" i understand that OP uses the asterisks as emphasis on the joke, while if it's written as "i hate cats /srs" i understand that OP just doesn't like cats, so it makes things clearer for me to understand.
2) single definition -- i admit that this is usually only for the widespread examples ("/s", "/j", etc. while it's less understood for the more niche tags -- "/nsrs" always feels like it can be boiled down to just "/j"), but i prefer tone tags over someone clarifying in parenthesis or as a separate note because the chosen words also have several meanings (if that makes sense). "/s" allows me to know that OP was being sarcastic immediately, and I can respond that way as well, where if someone clarifies with "(lying)" or "(kidding)", it's still understandable but it's less clear. tone tags allow me to understand the statement as a whole while clarifying words just confuse me.
3) pretty common in fanspaces -- this is another personal case, but tone tags are really common in fandom spaces, and so i see them used pretty often in conversation, which is probably why i understand them so well and can use them without a second thought.
I just hope that this comment doesn't come off as hateful or anything! /hj has always felt a lot like "i agree with part of this statement while the other half is complete bs", but i completely understand why it would be seen as confusing!! just thought i would share my own stance/opinion on tone tags and offer insight as to why i feel like they're useful for me and my 'tism lol.
i hope you all have a great day!!! ^-^
thanks for the information. i will be using quarter joke from now on /qj
this is literally the first time i'm seeing /hj ever. TIL. as a linguist I feel like ambiguity is so inextricable from language that anything used often enough to become colloquial, despite being made with intentions otherwise, will inevitably become as muddled and multi-faceted in meaning as the rest of language. striving for complete clarity and lack of ambiguity is an entirely different mode in english, and not one people are quick to use on the internet- especially when often I feel it can draw mockery or other negativity (because it' can be othering compared to people more 'fluent' in really jargony internet lingo)
Yep. A big part of slang is intentionally (or subconsciously) excluding those who aren't in on it. People used "bad" to mean "good" while fully knowing what "bad" was meant to mean. Given enough time, everything becomes a shibboleth.
I also like that slang lets you be MORE specific as well depending on context. It's certainly more confusing for people who aren't in the know but if you say someone's "tilted" for example there's a certain amount of nuance to the specific mental state of the person involved (angry/annoyed to the point where it's going to affect their behavior/performance.) vs just saying "upset" or "angry".
The use of synonyms of "literally" to mean the opposite was specifically mentioned in the video.
People fighting this natural evolution of language is a massive pet peeve of mine. You can't stop it people, this is how communication has always worked.
People get mad about "literally" but miss words like ultimate, terrific, fabulous, fantastic, fatal, awesome, terrible and awful, all of which have had their meanings change somewhat drastically.
Actually I literally get angry whenever an advertisement describes their product as the "ultimate" anything.
i think /lh (lighthearted) and /nm (not mad) are the most useful tone indicators for me. i have hard time telling when someone is genuinely upset or if they're jokingly upset (ex: "i hate you" used non-seriously) and i can sometimes interpret simple statements as trying to pick a fight so /lh makes situations less tense
What's up with just saying "I'm not saying this cos I'm mad btw, I'm not mad at you!!"?? why are we inventing weird code
/lh has been a godsent for me lmao i need people to know that i mean something in a chill unserious way. emojis are cool too but arent always what im looking for message wise
@@birdie8006 people having been shortening things over text for a long time (lol, lmao, btw... you get the point) so this isnt a new concept or anything. the original tone indicator, /s, has existed for several years
/lh and /nm feel so passive aggressive to me ngl. like the fact you felt the need to specify that you're not mad just makes me assume that you *are* mad
@@JoeBurrowSucks to be fair, my partner and I rage together on discord over life events and often we have to specify it with /nmay (not mad at you) because we are both on the spectrum as well as me having BPD. Having tone indicators helps me to separate my personal feelings from the situation, to manage my condition.
For sarcasm my friends always encompassed the stressed word in // like so "I totally /don't/ want that cookie" not the best example for sarcasm but I feel like it gets the usage across.