the /hj tone indicator is worse than useless

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.

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]

I never want to see another definition of /hj ever again

[zeroiscorrect]

Do not use tone indicators, take everything seriously and get into fights with strangers online.

[McSkullmun]

To me, ‘half joking’ is that awkward thing someone says that everyone is laughing about while giving each other a worried side eye.

[HBMmaster]

can you believe this is the first time I've said out loud in a video that I'm autistic

[tylonbordeaux]

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

[ellag]

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

[Verminangel]

I’ve honestly always interpreted /hj as a shorter way to say “for legal reasons This is a joke”

[kiapet]

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!

[steel]

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.

[Zuxtron]

My problem with /hj is that my brain always interprets it as "handjob" regardless of context.

[Carwinley]

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.

[thelemoncoffee]

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.

[stormy]

I've interpreted "half-joking" (tone indicator or otherwise) as meaning "My beliefs/preferences are in this direction, but I am exaggerating the magnitude" so not-literal but sincere. I personally have never heard or seen half-joking (in tone or as an indicator) used to mean "literal but funny".

[pamplemoo]

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

[liamsmith]

As an autistic person I admire your commitment to understanding people... my solution is just accepting I will never fully understand what everyone means

[AlexPredakinkshamer]

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.

[Naretek]

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.

[arwakhattab]

I've always interpreted "half-joking" as "I'm joking unless you agree with me, in which case I'm being serious."

[vanguarddawn]

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

[essixthedutchie]

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.