Yesterday I found someone who says “question mark” after every question and has apparently forgotten how to inflect their voice to express tone. It was horrifying, but I realized I’m not that different. I immediately think “cringe” or “based” at many things. Even when I’m not terminally online everything I hear gets put on a meme template by my brain. I’m having trouble expressing tone/emotion in writing without visual indicators like emojis or “/s.” I know I’m not alone, what do we do?

  • areyouevenreal
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    10 months ago

    It’s almost impossible to convey tone well through text. Just because you read a tone into something doesn’t mean you actually know what the author intended or what they actually felt. This is why explicit markers like emoji, tone indicators, and so on were invented. They actually improve communication when used correctly. I can’t ever see why that would be a bad thing especially in a medium like text. Funnily enough tone indicators are an accomodation for neurodivergent people that ended up being helpful for neurotypical people. It actually seems to be a problem that societal norms have, they get written by people with too many subtleties that even the average person struggles with, then some autistic dude comes over realizes it’s stupid and it gets replaced by actually clear, good communication.

    I also know people who say things like cringe and based out loud and I actually think it works for that person. They don’t take stuff seriously and it goes well with that vibe. It wouldn’t suit someone like me though. People used phrases meaning similar things long before the Internet was invented, it’s just more global now instead of local. Slang has always existed and it’s a very important part of language. To belittle that just because it came from the Internet is pretty much juvenoia at best or just plain anti-internet conservatism. So pretty cringe if you ask me 🤣.