So, I want to preface this by saying I do not write well. My thoughts rarely form paragraphs with beginnings, middles, and ends. I get off on tangents and forget my original point. I’m sure a lot of others here are similar, but this disclaimer is more for the neurotypical readers whom I am hoping will see this.
The tone of this entire post is honest and earnest unless otherwise specified.
Tone indicators get a lot of flak for being “cringe” in some circles, and I’m sad to have seen that that mindset apparently pervades here. Trying to put myself in the shoes of a NT person who does not understand the struggles of ND people, I can see why they might have that perspective. Tone indicators can seem unnecessary to someone who implicitly understands tone, and who assumes that it’s a skill everyone has.
But not everyone has the skill to recognize and understand tone. In verbal dialogue some ND people may have had enough experience to build up a reference of what sarcastic or joking voices sound like and file those away for later use, but online there are no such indicators – a problem that tone indicators attempt to fix.
So while to a NT reader a joke comment about, I don’t know, literally wanting to fuck my mom or something, might be immediately obvious, because “of course” a person online from another continent who has never seen her before probably doesn’t want to fuck my mom, this is not always evident to ND people. Neurodiversity is classified as a disability (and while I acknowledge the push back against this idea as inherently ableist by many in the community, bear with me,) and for many of us, one of the abilities we may lack is one which NT people take for granted: the ability to parse tone. To some of us, that flippant joke someone made might be confusing, or hurtful.
And while I don’t expect everyone to indicate tone online all of the time, what I do think should be expected from users on Hexbear, as a space that strives to be inclusive and uplifting to marginalized groups, is that if they are asked to clarify tone, they should. And I’d like to thank the user who made a thread on that topic. This should be the absolute bare minimum.
Now, some of our NT readers might be thinking “but I put a meme face image after my statement! It should make it obvious its tone!” But I don’t think that is sufficient to indicate tone. Tone indicators are numerous, but the list is somewhat short. I know of: sarcastic, joking, half joking, honest, confused, and a few others. This is not much to memorize, and their meanings are easily looked up. Meme images… not so much. There are hundreds here on Hexbear, many of which have no documentation like “mainstream”^★ memes do, so their meanings can be even more confusing than your jokes.
So try to put yourself in the shoes of a ND person who has trouble with tone, especially online. They are trying to understand your joke and get in on the fun. They want to be a part of the group. They’re having a little trouble understanding, so they ask you to clarify. Do you want to be inclusive and simply clarify your tone, or do you want to continue to uphold the paradigm of ND exclusion that pervades other spaces?
Speaking of exclusionary spaces, this leads me to point two. Intent.
I have already had an experience here, and seen many other such moments, where someone immediately jumped to hostility when they didn’t understand another user. I understand that that’s just the way online life is now, but again, shouldn’t we be trying to be better?
When you read a comment here and immediately jump to the conclusion that a user is bad-faith and start to dress them down, consider that on the other side of the screen might be a ND person with a different communication style than you, or a user whose native language isn’t the same as yours^†, who may have not communicated their thoughts in a way that best connected with you but who certainly doesn’t deserve to be immediately attacked over it.
ND people already have to put up with so much of this kind of thing in real life. It’s exhausting to be excluded or attacked for using language slightly differently, or for trying but failing to mimic our peers, or for talking about things in a “round about way,” et cetera. When it happens in a space like this that purports to be inclusive, it’s especially harmful.
Does it really harm you so much to ask a clarifying question to determine if you understood correctly before jumping to attacking a user’s message? There’s a good chance that there was a communication failure between you, and if so then 1) you stand to harm the other person needlessly by attacking them and 2) you waste energy breaking down an idea that was not even real – it was merely your mistaken interpretation of what the idea was.
And speaking of attacks, let’s move on to point three: slurs.
Ableism is so normalized in society that the vast majority of our personal attacks attempt to degrade someone’s intelligence or sanity in some way. Here’s a non-exhaustive list off the top of my head:
ableist terms
idiot, dumb, stupid, insane, crazy, lunatic, loon(e)y, nuts, “are you blind??”, “deaf to [an idea]”, lame
Plenty of the terms on this list are alive and well on Hexbear. Please consider how you make ND comrades feel when you use these terms as attacks – not just on ND comrades, but also on takes you think are bad in the Dunk Tank. These are terms a lot of us have been called all our lives. They carry a lot of pain. And by continuing to use them in the way you are, you’re upholding normalized ableism by equating neurodiversity with badness.
They’re not even good insults, very low effort. Liberals don’t inherently lack intelligence – and even if they did this wouldn’t be what makes their takes bad. They are willfully ignorant, and it’s the willfulness that makes it especially bad. People who are just ignorant have a chance to learn.
Speaking of ignorance and chances to learn, neurotypicals: this space is not actually as inclusive as you might think it is. I am calling you out on it. What are you going to do to get better?
★ Honestly, the assumption that everyone from everywhere in the world is going to understand your screenshots from western television shows kind of strikes me as a sort of western cultural hegemony anyway.
† Oh wow there’s that anglosphere cultural hegemony again
I didn’t say that we had to do away with tone, though? I’m confused.
with respect, your reply is a perfect, chefs kiss example of what im worried about.
I didn’t intend to suggest you said we had to do away with tone.
I didn’t intend to suggest that there would be these specific consequences if we do away with tone.
I did say that if we expect users to rely on tone secondary to precise language and fulfill requests to specify tone it would lead to abuse and shut down conversations.
the reason i suggest it would lead to abuse is that currently we are federated with other instances whose userbase is primarily redditors. one of the worst traits of redditors is their reliance on precise language and weaponization of it to abuse and harass other people. no one wants to fight on that terrain, so using tone is important to keeping people as safe as possible in their federated interactions.
the reason i suggest it would shut down conversations is that it will. consider what would happen to our fledgling conversation if i hadn’t had the time to explain in greater detail. i usually don’t. most people usually don’t, that’s one of the reasons we use slang, shorthand and tone to convey those ideas.
i said in the DroneRights sister thread that federation is incompatible with safe spaces. that’s not an original thought, it was inspired by someone on another instance lamenting that federation isn’t compatible with their unique culture. that person was right. if part of our site’s culture is being a safe space we can’t reach its’ full potential until we either defederate entirely or impress our values on the rest of the fediverse.
all the points you raise are valid and legitimate and i want to get there with you, but i don’t see how they can be addressed until one of those two outcomes have arrived.