Years ago there was some talk about creating a font to be used for making sarcastic remarks so that the person on the other end would know the tone was meant to be sarcastic. It never came to pass but now tone indicators are making the rounds in social media posts. Put simply, tone indicators are written shorthand for the poster’s intent and emotion. For example, one might use “/j,” short for “joking” to indicate the disparaging comment you just made about your best friend was just a friendly nudge and not the ‘nastygram’ that it might be taken as.
It will be interesting to see if this trend catches on. The tone indicators are showing up on Twitter and in the comments sections of The New York Times. And if your children start using them, you will certainly need to know what they are. Here is a sample list:
/j = joking
/s = sarcasm
/srs = serious
/nsrs = not serious
/r = romantic
/lh = lighthearted
/f = fake
/th = threat
/li = literally
/nm = not mad or upset
/t = teasing