Lolling Out Loud

Those of you who've interacted with me online a lot may have noticed that I never use the term "lol". I'll say "ha ha", "heh", "hee hee", or any one of a number of such things, but I just don't dig "lol". I guess I'm a big fan of particular expressiveness; I find "lol" to not be terribly descriptive. And it certainly doesn't convey the feeling of actually laughing out loud very well. Especially since many people use it in nearly everything they post. And frankly, I ain't laughing at everything they post. It's rather lost any kind of meaning for me. Heck, a couple people even put some variation of "lmao" in nine out of ten statuses/tweets/etc.. I wonder, "What, isn't there a strong enough duct tape that can keep your ass attached while you laugh? You've lost it so many times now."

I also get rather turned off by so many discussions I encounter where about a third of the transmissions, including the last consecutive four, are just "lol". Maybe my sense of humor is just different from that of most people, but I am seldom laughing that much in one conversation. I tend to picture these "lol-ers" as just sitting there, sort of pretending to be amused — maybe making just a fraction of a chuckle with their breath, maybe two very short exhales through the nose, but very little show of emotion at all. And that's about how "lol" comes across to me — emotionless filler.

I rather hope that I don't find myself putting emotionless filler out there. Or that society should somehow compel me to. I kind of feel like I'd be holding my hands in the air and surrendering if I used "lol". Come to think of it... lol rather looks like a guy with his hands in the air.

And I probably should say, I don't completely distance myself from cyber-acronyms and similar initials. I'll use FTW on occasion, as well as a couple others that escape me just now. But LOL just doesn't do it for me. Nor do OMG or ROFLMAO. And I'll usually use an emoticon in place of "WTF": ¿-⌠ (Tilt your head like you would for :-), and you'll see it. Hopefully.)