Things That Concern Me: July 5th, 2012: Proper Use of the Acronym LOL

I told a friend of mine I was going to write a post about the usage of lol and it went like this:

Before I start, let me stress the fact that I, in no way am discrediting lol, nor do I not condone the lol. I just believe that we should be using lol in the appropriate circumstances.  I also want to stress that I am not above using lol in the incorrect way. I just feel there is a lack of lol education and I believe we all should be informed and aware of this.

Just like every year when we forget that Christmas isn't about the presents, or the lights, or getting belligerently drunk; it's about the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, somewhere along the line we’ve forgotten the true meaning of lol.  It means laugh out loud for those of you who actually don’t know what it means (if you didn’t know, please stop reading my blog and delete me from your life).  Lol is one of those ancient text/chat acronyms that was able to withstand the test of time and not diminish in popularity but gain it (RIP g2g). 

When I first started using lol it was mainly just used as a response to someone who typed something that you literally laughed out loud at.  Okay, maybe you didn’t really complete the action, but you may have snorted, chuckled, or laughed in your head because you were too lazy to exert energy, which in turn burns calories and while you knew that laughing burns calories and you needed to burn calories but since you were such a lazy piece and just laughed in your head instead of out loud you are now sitting here typing this post with a muffin top.  I’m sorry, I'm sorry, my issue.  That’s my issue.

Somewhere along the way it became an indicator to the receiver of your thoughts since they couldn't hear your tone.  Lol was a helper to let the person on the receiving end know, 'hey don't take what I said too literal, serious, or offensive.'

EXAMPLE:
Me: I hate everyone in my office.
Reciever: That sucks.
Me: I know, right?
Me: Pretty soon I’m going to come in there with an AK-47 and blow everyone away lol
Reciever: hahahaha

Now if I didn’t put that lol in that message, two things could have happened:

 1) Due to my recent unstable mental health, and sociopathic urges, my friend could have thought I was being serious and contacted the local authorities, and within minutes I would have had three cop cars at my door and may have been placed in a 5150
-or-
2) Due to my well known sarcastic nature and sick, yet not unstable mind my friend assumed I was kidding, only to turn on the 6 PM news the next evening to see that I had indeed, murdered eight co-workers before the police could put me down. And they would have had that blood on their hands for the rest of their life.

Thankfully, I threw all those options out the window with the simple lol.

Or this:

Of course the person who texted this doesn't think our friend Nicole is a hoe, hence the lol.

Then all of a sudden, one morning I wake up and the next thing I know is lol had become some kind of monster that people just put everywhere, kind of like how the Situation basically puts his penis anywhere he thinks it will fit. The usage of lol had become complete and utter chaos.

People started lol-ing stuff that should have only gotten a haha or maybe a hahaha. 

Lol was not the correct response.  Haha would have sufficed, followed by a sorry and an untagging of the photo.  But that did not happen, I had to untag myself.

As I said earlier, I'm not above this, I have mistakenly thrown an lol out there too:

This wasn't that funny, it should have gotten a haha, but I threw up the lol. Granted, I was eight drinks deep at happy hour on the hot and humid east coast.

Side note: people can also mistake a haha for a lol, that too can happen:

This clearly should have been a lol when this person threw up a haha.

People also started hiding their points of view behind the lol, afraid the receiver was going to judge them.   

EXAMPLE
Me: I know, last night was so crazy.  I’m pretty hungover. I have Chlamydia lol
Friend: lol omg could you imagine? Ew.
Me, in my head while looking at my friend’s response: Okay, cross her off the list of ever going to tell her.
Me: I know, right? Ew. lol.

This person even threw up a jk after the lol, but let me tell you, he wasn't 'jk-ing.'

Or sometimes in comes in the form of a question, you don’t know why, but you don’t want to seem like a complete idiot:

EXAMPLE FACEBOOK STATUS:
Why is everyone hating on Obamacare? lol

Why is asking for assurance laugh out loud funny?  It's not.

Then more recently, the craze of adding lol to basic facts started happening.  This usage of lol irritates me more than improper windshield wiper usage, and WW usage is VERY important to me.  Usually these pop up in the wee hours of the night, or when you just want to say something to show the world you’re alive. These are most commonly used on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter

EXAMPLE:
My foot just fell asleep lol

Ok this was a bad example because sometimes when my foot falls asleep I do actually lol, because I walk around like my foot is about to be amputated.

Let’s try this one:  this person tweeted an appropriate way to state a fact:

Then just a few days later, the same person couldn't sleep again and tweeted this abomination:

How is this lol funny? How?  I will bet my first unborn child that this person wasn't laughing while they typed it.

Here I leave you with a couple of proper uses of the lol:

I mean, come on people, this is comedic gold.

After a night out, I received this text from a friend driving home and her tire blew out:

Also acceptable acronym for the more than lol statements: lolol

DISCLAIMER:  I do not have, nor will I ever have Chlamydia.  Nor will I ever go into my place of employment with an AK-47 and blow eight co-workers brains out.