So, I was trying to think of a name for the blog and I settled on Too Much Information for obvious reasons. Anyone who’s ever spoken with me for longer than 30 seconds has probably thought: “Holy Crap! Why is he telling me this? Stop!” I’m the king of too much information. I realize this, but it’s just too funny to stop.
Anyways, as I was thinking of a name, my train of thought led me to think of different texting/chatting acronyms. I thought LOL would be a good one, because I try to be funny. Then I started thinking about LOL. Laugh Out Loud. Everyone….right now, do a quick tally in your brain how many times you have typed or texted “LOL”. Alright…now think how many times you typed LOL that you ACTUALLY LAUGHED OUT LOUD in response to whatever was so funny. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it isn’t very often, if ever.
Someone types something funny, and we respond with “LOL”, apparently saying that is was so freaking funny that we couldn’t contain ourselves and broke out laughing wherever we were. Imagine if this were true…if people actually laughed out loud every time they typed that they were laughing out loud, we would see people laughing all the time. At their desks at work, walking down the street, in the grocery store…everyone would just be walking around laughing to themselves like crazy people.
What people are really trying to say when they say “LOL” is that they found something to be funny. Not necessarily, Laugh Out Loud funny, but funny nonetheless. The problem is that we only have an acronym for something that is crazy laugh out loud funny, but we don’t have a good acronym for normal funny. This is where we make our mark on American culture. I think we need to come up with an acronym for normal funny. I know sometimes people type “hahaha”. This is useful because you can increase the number of “ha’s” depending on how funny something is. “hahahahahahahahaha” is obviously more funny than “haha”. (by the way, if you are chatting or texting in spanish, it’s “jajajaja”. I’m serious.) I think this is the best alternative to LOL. It feels a little more juvenile, but it is more accurate, and more flexible. Are there any better alternatives? How about “LIMHBIAAWACLOLOPWKIACAIGF”, which stands for “Laughing In My Head Because I Am At Work And Can’t Laugh Out Loud Or People Will Know I Am Chatting And I’ll Get Fired”?
Anyways, all I’m saying is I feel disingenuous when I type LOL even though I didn’t’ really laugh out loud. There’s got to be a better way