At Geekfoolery.com the authors have noted that “LOL” as an acronym has undermined effective IM communication of amusement.
Some things are truly LOL moments: Most things that The Social Bobcat writes fall into this category ( e.g. this very old post of mine ).
Most things are not of this calibre, but a great many people use the LOL acronym to assert that what was said was of this uproarious nature. The Geekfoolery krewe sugest using BNS. Sure it’s a bit, uh, graphic, but after a few months of use, the acronym will take over the component and all we will have two meaningful acronyms for conveying mirth: mere amusement and uproarious hilarity.
I was talking to my girlfriend about this topic and she said this was one of the things she liked best about me: that when we IM’d I only used LOL in truly funny moments.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:17 am
i have a coworker here who, in the course of email conversations, almost always punctuates his statements with “LOL!”
i don’t know if it’s the all-caps or the exclamation mark (point?) or a combo of the two but it seems like way more emphasis than is usually warranted.
i use the acronym too from time to time but typically employ the lower-key “lol” format. most of the time though, a simple “hehe” adequately communicates my moderate amusement.
January 17th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I find it even more annoying that my IM client (Trillian) actually plays a clip of a laugh when someone types an LOL to you.
I’ll have to get them to include the audio of BNS in the next build.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:20 am
That’s some letter-opener of death material right there.
January 19th, 2007 at 9:43 am
the trillian laugh doesn’t bother me but i’ve found it interesting that a tv commercial or two has used that same exact laugh
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Is the Trillian laugh the new Wilhelm Scream?