Facebook made news last week when it rolled out a group of emoticons to go along with its infamous “like” button. Those new options, like “wow” and “angry,” have generated perhaps predictable controversy.
No one asked Lake Effect essayist Jonathan West, but he believes the downfall of communication goes a fair amount further back:
Since you never asked…
…the cutoff age for using LOL in any written, spoken or robot generated communication is 15 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. When you turn 16 it’s time to get serious and focus on important things like learning to drive and cheating on your taxes.
I am a rabid texter. I have an active Facebook account. I Tweet and post photos on Instagram. I even know that all the kids today say that Snapchat will soon rule our lives in ways that make me shudder. If you become a part of my social network (and feel free to ask because I’m sort of a friend and follow tramp and will likely approve your request), you’ll notice something about my posts and updates. I use full sentences. The kinds with beginnings, middles and ends lacking in abbreviation. Shortening an already teeny phrase like “laugh out loud” is like eating only half a cookie. It makes absolutely no sense.
This whole use of LOL as some kind of kewpie pie way to show you think a thing deserves a chuckle is child’s play. And who really wants to be a child when being an adult means you get to do things like refinance a mortgage or plan your annual colonoscopy? This love of the LOL abbreviation makes me want to round up all the offenders who tag it into texts, pictures, online posts, and even say it out loud, set them in front of a gigantic chalkboard and have them write 100 times, “LOL IS THE START OF THE WORD LOLLIPOP, AND NOTHING MORE.”
There is real dignity in using full phrases. It’s nice to take the time to pull together all the words that we each have at our disposal to express a thought. And just think how happy that will make your third grade teacher when she hears about it? Laughing out loud isn’t a bad thing at all. I’m the first guy to like a good gag. But LOL has become a catch-all closer that has sound but absolutely no fury.
LOL is not some abstract notion for me. This is real personal problem in my life. A person close to me, someone of great accomplishment and intellect, takes tender care in sending me long emails full of rich details. At the end of each of these missives, be they worthy of a laugh or earn a tear or two, my contact uses the same finishing punch. LOL. It’s maddening to see such a good egg stoop so low to the LOL.
You might believe I’m unduly hot under the collar over LOL. You know what that makes me want to do? LMFAO as I curl up with a good thesaurus, thank you very much. And if you think there’s ever a chance that I’m going to reverse my decision on the LOL, let me be clear and spell it out for you slowly and thoroughly. N. O.
Contributor Jonathan West is a writer, actor, and currently the Pfister Narrator at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.
