When communicating with strangers on the Internet, it's often difficult to gauge whether someone is being serious or joking. That's a big part of the reason why tone indications are so popular with Gen Z. For the uninitiated, tone indicators are little acronyms someone might put after a question or comment online to indicate whether they're being genuine (/gen), joking (/j), or teasing (/t). I will admit that sometimes tone indicators can get a little out of hand. Does one really need to say, “…