I used/use it a lot, became the standard when I was on AIM.
Mostly I feel people use it for tone and switch between the two. Then again I also respond with k too often apparently and have had spouses bring it up to me. "I'm going to pick up hot dog buns on the way home" k is apparently not always the proper response to such things apparently.
K, lol, cool/kool, alright, nice, oh... Apparently make up a lot of what she calls my NPC responses.
It's not that I don't care, it's that there really isn't a reason for me to send a flushed out response while I'm in a rush and or trying to respond at a red light. I'll see them soon, if i thought something else should be picked up at the store when they were there id either say so or call if I thought it warranted a quick discussion.
If I ask do you want tacos, sure is a perfectly valid response, we've shared a bed for 5 years.. if I don't know what you do and don't like on a taco I wasn't paying attention, if you want something you usually wouldn't, then it makes sense to say more
But plenty of millennials did for sure. I'm 1987, was never a loler myself, but am certainly familiar enough with it.
And admittedly, I have used it. My buddy and I used to sit in his room playing red alert 2, and one of us would do something dumb and the other would type "lol," and then look across the room with a straight face. So I always imagined someone typing lol to be doing so with a completely straight face, the complete opposite of laughing out loud.
I did "haha" up until somewhat recently. I started using lol sarcastically, and it quickly bled over into the haha usage. I can't break the habit either....
Tone is an absolute bitch to convey properly over text, if you don't add indicators it's up to the reader to determine the tone you're using. Miscommunication causes larger problems. Using lol helps indicate a lighter tone so people don't think I'm pissed off or grumpy when I'm not
I had to teach myself to say lol all the time via text and it absolutely helps with tone, so does using emoji which was something else I had to force myself to do. I seem less mature I guess but I don’t come off as a blunt asshole anymore and my conversations go a lot smoother
I have been called weird or passive aggressive for using punctuation in my text messages. Why do we cater to these people? Why do I care about the opinion of someone who takes to heart whether I use an exclamation point or period at the end of a sentence? It should have been their problem to learn to not make assumptions.
It's also up to you to learn to work with others, conversation is a cooperative game. If you don't give enough signs, people don't know the tone you are intending to give over text, because body language and verbal tone is missing. That's the purpose of the informal conventions
What I want... No. What I need is a browser extension that would change every "lol" on every page into a small picture of a TIE Fighter. It would make that flyby noise if you put your mouse over it and you could blow it up by clicking.
Your comment triggered me to ask an LLM to create it, and it came up with something. I'm not going to test it though, so we'll never know if it works. I'd advise anyone not to try it. It gave links to an image and a sound file that gave a 404 error. LLM output:
Here’s a complete Firefox extension that replaces the text "lol" with a TIE Fighter image, plays a sound on hover, and changes the image on click.
🔧 Firefox Extension: “Lol to TIE Fighter”
Manifest File (manifest.json)
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "Lol to TIE Fighter",
"version": "1.0",
"description": "Replaces 'lol' with a TIE Fighter image and plays sound on hover.",
"permissions": [
"activeScript",
"scripting",
"https://example.com/*"
],
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": ["<all_urls>"],
"js": ["content.js"]
}
],
"background": {
"scripts": ["background.js"]
},
"options_page": "options.html"
}
Content Script (content.js)
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
function replaceTextNodesWithImages() {
const walker = document.createTreeWalker(document.body, NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT, null, false);
let node;
while (node = walker.nextNode()) {
if (node.textContent.includes("lol")) {
const img = document.createElement("img");
img.src = "https://example.com/tie-fighter.png"; // Replace with your image URL
img.style.width = "20px";
img.style.height = "20px";
img.style.display = "inline-block";
img.style.cursor = "pointer";
// Sound on hover
img.addEventListener("mouseover", () => playSound());
// Blow up on click
img.addEventListener("click", () => blowUp(img));
node.replaceWith(img);
}
}
}
replaceTextNodesWithImages();
});
function playSound() {
const audio = new Audio("https://example.com/sound.mp3"); // Replace with your sound URL
audio.play();
}
function blowUp(img) {
img.src = "https://example.com/blowup.png"; // Replace with a larger image or "none"
img.style.width = "40px";
img.style.height = "40px";
}
Image and Sound Requirements
TIE Fighter Image: Replace the URL in content.js with a public domain image. Example:
TIE Fighter Image from Wikipedia
Sound Effect: Replace the URL with a .mp3 file hosted on your server. Example:
Sound Effect from FreeSound.org
🛠️ How to Use
Create the files:
manifest.json
content.js
Load the extension in Firefox:
Go to about:debugging in Firefox.
Click Add Extension and select the folder with your files.
Test on any website with “lol” text.
⚠️ Notes
Image/Sound URLs: Replace the URLs with your own hosted or public domain assets.
Performance: This script runs on every page, so consider optimizing for large sites.
Security: Ensure the image and sound URLs are secure to avoid errors.
This extension replaces “lol” with a TIE Fighter image, plays a sound on hover, and expands the image on click. Adjust the URLs to match your assets!
your LLM misunderstood the request, it is going to replace the entire sentence (or the entire comment/post) into the TIE fighter if it contains the "lol", not just the part where it is "lol". Also the "blow up" is not explosion, it thought it means "making it big"
I genuinely do not know, but I keep running into that, where they just use the crying emoji and they tell me it means they're laughing so hard they cried (not literally of course but w/e)... even though there actually is a laughing-crying emoji.
I'm going to yell at clouds tiktok, its probably cloud's tiktok's fault, somehow.
EDIT:
like, I tell a joke, they respond with a crying emoji, I am confused and apologetic because I think I hurt their feelings and they are just sad crying... nope.
Nope they actually liked the joke.
This has happened to me a number of times in the last 6-9 months, with different people.
I've begun to find it grating, because somewhere along the line it seems to have been co-opted by people who exclusively communicate through passive aggression online lol
So it's no longer "Who did this 😭😭"
And more like "Why are you buying takeout after complaining about minimum wage being low 😭😭"
The lol has contextual meaning though. Sometimes it means "you fucking idiot" and sometimes it means "thats funny" and sometimes it means "i dont care" etc.
Elder (and just old) millennial here. I remember "lol" became a thing because cell phones became a common thing. Specifically, the old flip phones.
Texting on them was a pain. Imagine having to type words with only a number pad. And you only had a tiny digital screen that could only fit a few words on it. On top of that, we were sometimes charged by the character. Or sometimes by the word. Depended on your service.
Everyone was looking for the shortest way to type words and get their message across. So shortcuts like "lol," "ily," "wdym," etc. became common use. As well as a variety of text emojis like :) :D :P or the fancy Japanese ones: (^_^) (-_-;;) etc.
As someone who spent their childhood with their nose buried in books, it bothered me to see this shorthand English everywhere. It just felt lazy to me. To this day, I've never typed "lol" unless I'm talking about the acronym itself.
I'd say they were already very common in online chatrooms long before cellphones were widely adopted. They just translated really well to the poor typing options, character limits, and per-message billing of the time so became more widely adopted (and some new shorthand created).
Before us millenials had our own take at inventing initialisms and proto emojis...
Beepers. Pagers.
A fair number of different kinds of 'codes' became at least somewhat widely used as shorthand for more semantically complex things, and they had even smaller character limits.
Now I was like 5 when pagers were all the rage, so I have no personal experience with these, but this was arguably the gen x version of millenials who spent too much time on computers as children coming up with 'gtfo' and 'lmao' and 'rofl' and such.
GenX here. Yeah I remember beepers being all the rage in a brief window of time, just before cell phones took off. They were called "Minicall" here in Sweden.
Huh! It never occurred to me that there would be other funny/cute nicknames for them in other languages, but... duh, obviously, of course there would be.
I think that mobile phones became popular before chat rooms.
Chat rooms existed first, but I think that they were mostly just for nerds until the early to mid 2000s
Cell phones were only for grown ups and maybe rich kids, but anyone could install instant messaging software on the family computer.
Everyone I knew in high school, even if I wasn't friends with them, had AIM and even Facebook before all of them had phones, because phones cost money.
I have a tendency to speak very blunt and directly about most things, so lol is absolute necessity for me online in order to not blatantly spread ragebait everywhere I go lol
ROFLcopter or Rolling on the floor laughing like a helicopter is when something is so funny that you fall out of your seat laughing and you start kicking yourself giddily around the floor in a circle like a helicopter rotor.
I'm Gen Z and I use lol as punctuation at the end of a sentence to indicate a lighthearted tone, just like a ? or ! indicate their respective tones. It's very useful, and I think I'll keep using it lol
It fills a similar niche to tone tags but somewhat less intrusive imo.
I was once sitting next to a colleague in a group pod who sent us an e-mail ending with "lol". I turned to my left and called him out on it because that dude was quiet as a mouse.
Yeah it's a tone indicator "this may be taken as having a serious or upset tone, but wasn't meant that way" though it also can mean "please don't be upset" in the case of something like "sorry I disappeared for a bit, life happened lol"
I still remember using lol, especially in speach, being seen as cringe worthy. And as such things happen people start using it ironically until everyone is using it and forgot it started as ironic.
The English language is capable of endless nuance. If you can't convey tone, just get better at writing.
You also shouldn't get in the habit of undercutting everything you say. It's ok to say something and mean it. If you don't take yourself seriously, other people won't take you seriously.
Besides, when you are joking, it's funnier when you don't wink. Winking is for suckers.
141 Comments
Soulphite@reddthat.com · 51 pts · 158d
Am millennial and have never once used that acronym. I always just type "haha" instead... haha
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 157d
Am millenial, I've used both lol and haha, since... I dunno, 1996?
I distinctly remember the first time I accidentally said 'lol' outloud, as a single syllable, at the end of a sentence.
Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 158d
Right haha, think the "lol" was gen x.
obinice@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 157d
Millennials were ABSOLUTELY all about the lols, I can assure you. It was the most widely used acronym everywhere (second being brb, I would wager).
We roflcopter'd and roflmao'd with the best of em! lol
Saapas@piefed.zip · 22 pts · 158d
It's pretty common with millenials at least
itrealgood@mander.xyz · 14 pts · 157d
Saapas@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 157d
Blast from the past
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 158d
I used/use it a lot, became the standard when I was on AIM.
Mostly I feel people use it for tone and switch between the two. Then again I also respond with k too often apparently and have had spouses bring it up to me. "I'm going to pick up hot dog buns on the way home" k is apparently not always the proper response to such things apparently.
K, lol, cool/kool, alright, nice, oh... Apparently make up a lot of what she calls my NPC responses.
It's not that I don't care, it's that there really isn't a reason for me to send a flushed out response while I'm in a rush and or trying to respond at a red light. I'll see them soon, if i thought something else should be picked up at the store when they were there id either say so or call if I thought it warranted a quick discussion.
If I ask do you want tacos, sure is a perfectly valid response, we've shared a bed for 5 years.. if I don't know what you do and don't like on a taco I wasn't paying attention, if you want something you usually wouldn't, then it makes sense to say more
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 3 pts · 157d
I felt my knees crack when you said AIM lol
redsand@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 157d
asl
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 157d
I mostly saw that in yahoo pool chat rooms, haha. Still tempted to say 36/m/TN though
UnpledgedCatnapTipper@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 157d
I'm a millennial and I use lol way too often to start or end messages
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 157d
But plenty of millennials did for sure. I'm 1987, was never a loler myself, but am certainly familiar enough with it.
And admittedly, I have used it. My buddy and I used to sit in his room playing red alert 2, and one of us would do something dumb and the other would type "lol," and then look across the room with a straight face. So I always imagined someone typing lol to be doing so with a completely straight face, the complete opposite of laughing out loud.
Soulphite@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 157d
1987 as well... i just never caught on to the acronyms.
BTW love the whole C&C franchise
Ope... i said BTW.. guess I contradicted myself. Oops.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 157d
KIROV REPORTING
KIROV REPORTING
KIROV REPORTING
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 6 pts · 157d
I tend to reserve haha for conveying mildly interesting observations in a nonthreatening manner
"You must be their best customer to know that, haha"
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 157d
Same.
'haha' is more polite/cordial, more passive and may indicate essentially nervous laughter
'lol' is more blunt/informal, more aggressive and may potentially indicate mockery
yakko@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 157d
Really? Damn. Haha just makes me think of that kid from the Simpsons
956@piefed.social · 2 pts · 157d
I did "haha" up until somewhat recently. I started using lol sarcastically, and it quickly bled over into the haha usage. I can't break the habit either....
DiabolicalBird@lemmy.ca · 39 pts · 157d
Tone is an absolute bitch to convey properly over text, if you don't add indicators it's up to the reader to determine the tone you're using. Miscommunication causes larger problems. Using lol helps indicate a lighter tone so people don't think I'm pissed off or grumpy when I'm not
mimavox@piefed.social · -1 pts · 157d
yeah, I mean that's why emojis exist in the first place.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 14 pts · 157d
We use a form of speech from before emojis (:
MrQuallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.place · 6 pts · 157d
Good ol' smileys! :D
And somewhere inbetween, or perhaps alongside the smileys, we had the wonders of kaomoji
(◕‿◕✿)
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 157d
Hell yeah. :D
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 157d
Millennials didn't have emojis at first. You realize that, right?
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
mimavox@piefed.social · 0 pts · 157d
Regular text emojis have been around forever. I was talking about those.
hesh@quokk.au · 8 pts · 157d
Emoticons, please
mimavox@piefed.social · -1 pts · 157d
Potato, potato :)
SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 157d
But consider:
Emojis have no soul, and will never see the light of Heaven
Text based emoticons, meanwhile :) :( :3 :o Are God's chosen tone indicator, animated with the breath of life
CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 157d
I had to teach myself to say lol all the time via text and it absolutely helps with tone, so does using emoji which was something else I had to force myself to do. I seem less mature I guess but I don’t come off as a blunt asshole anymore and my conversations go a lot smoother
Monte_Crisco@thelemmy.club · 11 pts · 157d
I’m afraid I’ve used “lol” so much for so many years that this is exactly how people will interpret my texts if I suddenly stop now.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 157d
U ok? Did we upset you? You seem...tense.
icelimit@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 157d
I too am not sure how to interpret your message lol
mika_mika@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 157d
I have been called weird or passive aggressive for using punctuation in my text messages. Why do we cater to these people? Why do I care about the opinion of someone who takes to heart whether I use an exclamation point or period at the end of a sentence? It should have been their problem to learn to not make assumptions.
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 157d
Because you're not following social conventions
It's also up to you to learn to work with others, conversation is a cooperative game. If you don't give enough signs, people don't know the tone you are intending to give over text, because body language and verbal tone is missing. That's the purpose of the informal conventions
It's your problem to learn too
mimavox@piefed.social · 1 pts · 157d
I perceive lol as slightly unserious / childish, but maybe it's because I'm GenX
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 157d
I'm a Xennial? Born in 1980 so last year of Gen X, first year of Millennials?
I learned back in the early '90s that "lol" made my lighthearted comments appear lighthearted, and not cynical.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 157d
Life is meaningless and the universe is cruel chaos lol
Damn, it really works.
9point6@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 157d
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 157d
I feel this in my bones.
Scorpy's gonna scorp. XD
A_Drusas@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
rofl
Klear@quokk.au · 29 pts · 158d
What I want... No. What I need is a browser extension that would change every "lol" on every page into a small picture of a TIE Fighter. It would make that flyby noise if you put your mouse over it and you could blow it up by clicking.
eatCasserole@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 157d
Someone who's good at computer, please make! I'm going to assume it wouldn't be that hard.
zout@fedia.io · -2 pts · 157d
Your comment triggered me to ask an LLM to create it, and it came up with something. I'm not going to test it though, so we'll never know if it works. I'd advise anyone not to try it. It gave links to an image and a sound file that gave a 404 error. LLM output:
Here’s a complete Firefox extension that replaces the text "lol" with a TIE Fighter image, plays a sound on hover, and changes the image on click.
🔧 Firefox Extension: “Lol to TIE Fighter”
bountygiver@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 157d
your LLM misunderstood the request, it is going to replace the entire sentence (or the entire comment/post) into the TIE fighter if it contains the "lol", not just the part where it is "lol". Also the "blow up" is not explosion, it thought it means "making it big"
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 28 pts · 157d
Go fuck yourself, lol.
Cordyceps@sopuli.xyz · 12 pts · 157d
About to, lol.
CatZoomies@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 158d
RejZoR@lemmy.ml · 20 pts · 158d
Lol, no.
Also this is millennial thing, not GenX. I don't know anyone from that generation that would use lol.
restingOface@quokk.au · 12 pts · 157d
Did someone say GenX? Or am I misreading your comment here?
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 157d
Yeah they did in response to a different comment elsewhere in t thus thread.
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 158d
Now it’s “💀”
Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 157d
Actually, it's "😭" now
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 157d
I keep seeing zoomers use this and it keeps confusing the shit out of me, because half the time, it just looks like crying, not laughing-crying.
Maybe they're just bad at it and using the wrong emoji half the time? idfk
JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 157d
Yeah the crying laughing emoji is 😂 why tf are they using the actual crying emoji
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 157d
I genuinely do not know, but I keep running into that, where they just use the crying emoji and they tell me it means they're laughing so hard they cried (not literally of course but w/e)... even though there actually is a laughing-crying emoji.
I'm going to yell at
cloudstiktok, its probablycloud'stiktok's fault, somehow.EDIT:
like, I tell a joke, they respond with a crying emoji, I am confused and apologetic because I think I hurt their feelings and they are just sad crying... nope.
Nope they actually liked the joke.
This has happened to me a number of times in the last 6-9 months, with different people.
Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 157d
I am actually gen z and the "😂" has simply become cringe because older people overused it so much and I guess that's why we switched to "😭"
It's also interesting to me how you still see it as crying because my brain just doesn't make that connection at all anymore
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 157d
I genuienly appreciate the explanation, that makes sense.
2 reasons unc here sees them similarly:
A ) I barely ever use emojis
Many millennials grew up using
*-*=D:<0.0>=[... style constructions to represent emotions / facial expressions in text.
I'm used to those, I'm not used to emojis.
B ) I'm just actually slowly losing visual acuity.
I'm getting oooollldddd.
I've got an astigmatism now, and I tend to only wear my glasses when I absolutely need to.
So I have to squint or put on my glasses to make out variations in emojis, sometimes.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 157d
It's because the regular laugh crying emoji got watered down so if something was really fuuny, one has to escalate.
mimavox@piefed.social · 2 pts · 157d
Maybe because it isn't cool to use 😂? It has a bit of a bad rep in that it's seen as a boomer-emoji, I think.
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 3 pts · 157d
I've begun to find it grating, because somewhere along the line it seems to have been co-opted by people who exclusively communicate through passive aggression online lol
So it's no longer "Who did this 😭😭"
And more like "Why are you buying takeout after complaining about minimum wage being low 😭😭"
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 157d
It's like when it's sad but also funny, so like, you're laughing, but also crying in a "this is too real" kinda way
At least that's how me and my friends seem to use it :p
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 157d
🥀🥀🥀
normalentrance@lemmy.zip · 20 pts · 157d
It masks all the sadness in my heart, lol.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 157d
I'm sorry for your loss, move on, lol
TheGoldenV@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 157d
Lots of love?
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de · 18 pts · 158d
The lol has contextual meaning though. Sometimes it means "you fucking idiot" and sometimes it means "thats funny" and sometimes it means "i dont care" etc.
Janx@piefed.social · 14 pts · 158d
Lol
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 157d
true
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 1 pts · 157d
Sometimes I have to catch myself because posting a plain "lol" can now be misinterpreted as aggressive lmao
So if I have nothing to say I'll just go with "lollll"
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 157d
El oh el
Agent641@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 157d
Lmao, even
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca · 16 pts · 157d
You can pry my lol from my cold dead fingers lol
cobysev@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 157d
Elder (and just old) millennial here. I remember "lol" became a thing because cell phones became a common thing. Specifically, the old flip phones.
Texting on them was a pain. Imagine having to type words with only a number pad. And you only had a tiny digital screen that could only fit a few words on it. On top of that, we were sometimes charged by the character. Or sometimes by the word. Depended on your service.
Everyone was looking for the shortest way to type words and get their message across. So shortcuts like "lol," "ily," "wdym," etc. became common use. As well as a variety of text emojis like :) :D :P or the fancy Japanese ones: (^_^) (-_-;;) etc.
As someone who spent their childhood with their nose buried in books, it bothered me to see this shorthand English everywhere. It just felt lazy to me. To this day, I've never typed "lol" unless I'm talking about the acronym itself.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 157d
I'd say they were already very common in online chatrooms long before cellphones were widely adopted. They just translated really well to the poor typing options, character limits, and per-message billing of the time so became more widely adopted (and some new shorthand created).
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 157d
Before us millenials had our own take at inventing initialisms and proto emojis...
Beepers. Pagers.
A fair number of different kinds of 'codes' became at least somewhat widely used as shorthand for more semantically complex things, and they had even smaller character limits.
https://www.wikihow.com/Pager-Codes
Now I was like 5 when pagers were all the rage, so I have no personal experience with these, but this was arguably the gen x version of millenials who spent too much time on computers as children coming up with 'gtfo' and 'lmao' and 'rofl' and such.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 157d
Excellent point! That pushes the timeline back even further.
mimavox@piefed.social · 2 pts · 157d
GenX here. Yeah I remember beepers being all the rage in a brief window of time, just before cell phones took off. They were called "Minicall" here in Sweden.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 157d
Huh! It never occurred to me that there would be other funny/cute nicknames for them in other languages, but... duh, obviously, of course there would be.
Neat!
mimavox@piefed.social · 2 pts · 157d
Yeah. It could be that it was an actual brand name, but everyone called them that in any case.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 157d
Sorta like how ~1/3 of Americans refer to any kind of soda / pop as 'Coke'.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 157d
Hold up.
I think that mobile phones became popular before chat rooms.
Chat rooms existed first, but I think that they were mostly just for nerds until the early to mid 2000s
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 157d
Cell phones were only for grown ups and maybe rich kids, but anyone could install instant messaging software on the family computer.
Everyone I knew in high school, even if I wasn't friends with them, had AIM and even Facebook before all of them had phones, because phones cost money.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
Hold up tho. We're all nerds here, right?
lauha@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 157d
Thank you for explaining this, lol
notabot@piefed.social · 3 pts · 157d
Similar shorthand was used when sending telegrams, as they were charged by the character too.
Objection@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 157d
lol STOP lmao STOP
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 14 pts · 157d
I have a tendency to speak very blunt and directly about most things, so lol is absolute necessity for me online in order to not blatantly spread ragebait everywhere I go lol
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 14 pts · 157d
But I really am laughing out loud. I am rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off. In a helicopter. A helicopter that goes swooshswooshswooshdwoosh.
icelimit@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 157d
Not aware of this helicopter stuff. What is that about? Lol?
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 17 pts · 157d
icelimit@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 157d
Ah yes the roflcopter
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 157d
And also don't forget the dongcopter
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 156d
ROFLcopter or Rolling on the floor laughing like a helicopter is when something is so funny that you fall out of your seat laughing and you start kicking yourself giddily around the floor in a circle like a helicopter rotor.
Grostleton@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 158d
Don't wanna, lmao
chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 157d
Life sucks, I'm poor, and everything hurts. Lol.
rarWars@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 13 pts · 157d
I'm Gen Z and I use lol as punctuation at the end of a sentence to indicate a lighthearted tone, just like a ? or ! indicate their respective tones. It's very useful, and I think I'll keep using it lol
It fills a similar niche to tone tags but somewhat less intrusive imo.
karashta@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 157d
This has how it's always been used as far as I have seen as an older millennial, aside from being used in a form of irony.
It's an upbeat tone indicator. But it's not the same as sending someone a smile with your text.
It fills a useful niche. Just like /s also does.
QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 157d
it's like "over" on a radio lol
Gork@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 158d
lol is the millennials version of over, lol
lugal@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 157d
Roger that, rofl
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 157d
instructions unclear, lolwtfbbq
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 3 pts · 157d
Now there's a phrase I have not heard in a long time
BurgerBaron@piefed.social · 8 pts · 157d
Can't stop won't stop lol.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 157d
I was once sitting next to a colleague in a group pod who sent us an e-mail ending with "lol". I turned to my left and called him out on it because that dude was quiet as a mouse.
yakko@feddit.uk · 8 pts · 157d
Millennials not using lol in their messages is like a Brit not offering you tea
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 156d
Yeah it's a tone indicator "this may be taken as having a serious or upset tone, but wasn't meant that way" though it also can mean "please don't be upset" in the case of something like "sorry I disappeared for a bit, life happened lol"
Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio · 8 pts · 157d
I'm gen X as all hell and I'll say lol when I want lol.
zarathustrad@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 157d
I say lol for teh lulz.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 157d
There's no comma there. They use it as punctuation at the end of a sentence:
e.g.: "I heard your mother died I'm sorry lol"
Tonava@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 157d
A_Drusas@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
Or maybe yesterday idk
A_Drusas@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 157d
Excuse you, but it's lol, no.
SethTaylor@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 157d
ROFLMAO never
DisgruntledGorillaGang@reddthat.com · 6 pts · 157d
Lol, fuck this
brown567@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 157d
Lol, no
this@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 157d
lol. Yes it's a sentence all by itself, it means nothing, lol.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 157d
I thought it was a little dude throwing a rave in emoji
marcos@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 158d
Lol! lol
fonix232@fedia.io · 3 pts · 157d
IMO a more apt response would've been "lol no"
grrgyle@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 156d
I've really been struggling lately in a way that feels more serious than ever before lol
AgentOrangesicle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 156d
Oh, sorry. Things just don't feel the same as when we were dating. I feel like the magic is gone. I want a divorce.
BoosBeau@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 157d
Laugh out loud, lol.
FundMECFS@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 158d
lol, no
Gates9@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 157d
👍
synapse1278@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 157d
The only person I know with the lol habit is American. No one else does that.
imjustmsk@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 157d
shit I ain't american nor a Millenial lol
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 156d
It's still better than using "literally" in every sentence.
fenrasulfr@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 157d
I still remember using lol, especially in speach, being seen as cringe worthy. And as such things happen people start using it ironically until everyone is using it and forgot it started as ironic.
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 157d
but I say lol irl
BlackVenom@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
Lol.. at the end of what sentence
heartpunk25@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 156d
I am technically an older gen z lol.
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
"Lulz" is a corruption of "L.O.L.," which stands for "Laugh Out Loud."
turtlesareneat@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 157d
I did it all for the lulz (come on) the lulz (come on) so you can take that lol and stick it in your ahaha
jeffep@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
So is "no, " correct or "no, lol lol"?
bett@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 157d
no lol
LGTM@discuss.tchncs.de · -1 pts · 157d
I think if I stopped adding lol to my messages, I'd instantly become the most racist existence known to man.
Wait, where's my lol?
moakley@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 157d
The English language is capable of endless nuance. If you can't convey tone, just get better at writing.
You also shouldn't get in the habit of undercutting everything you say. It's ok to say something and mean it. If you don't take yourself seriously, other people won't take you seriously.
Besides, when you are joking, it's funnier when you don't wink. Winking is for suckers.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 157d
You sound like an asshole, fyi
WanakaTree@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 157d
You sound like an asshole,
fyilolFtfy
moakley@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 157d
Oh no.
musubibreakfast@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 157d
They haven't mastered the subtle art of being funny on the internet.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 157d
I would never tell them what to do, I just respond by ending every sentence "ha ha, HA haha hooo", copy and paste after every sentence.
For some reason they find it annoying, who knows why? I am confused
p.s. ha ha, HA haha hooo
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 0 pts · 157d
Imagine not understanding why being an obnoxious, pedantic twit who mocks others for inconsequential things would annoy people, lol.
Easiest block ever.
Lol.