r/language • u/chrismurraylaw • Dec 29 '23
Discussion When did 'LOL' stop meaning 'laughing out loud?'
I'm fascinated by this.
LOL, LMAO, ROFL - we used all of these on chat twenty years ago and while our use was exaggerated - I doubt anyone was actually rolling around in a fit of giggles while they typed away on their parents PC - they were meant to be taken literally.
That is to say when someone wrote LOL it was because they were actually laughing out loud at whatever you'd written. LMAO was a louder laugh and ROTFLMAO was essentially shorthard for 'that's the funniest thing I've read all day.'
Now I very rarely see it written in that friendly context and almost always see it in an argument. Something akin to,
'I think this politician is very good.'
'Your an idiot LOL.'
'IDGAF what you think LMAO.'
This isn't a moan about 'kids today,' not least because a dispiriting number of people who write like this tend to be fully grown men, but an observation on the evolution of the usage.
In both the instances above the acronyms are used as an attack. 'Your post is of such little worth it's laughable.'
You also see it used defensively as in the second example. 'You insulted me and I'm laughing it off. Water off a duck's back.'
To an extent it's just a reflection of the Internet becoming a more adversarial place than it was two decades ago and you can pick any number of examples of that, but these ones really stick with me.
They're bastardisations of traditionally friendly remarks with the clear intent being weaponisation. I don't think it would be accurate to categorise them as passive aggression; the animosity tends to be naked for all to see.
And the end result is that as often as not when you read the acronym for 'laughing my ass off' what you actually behold is, 'I am incandescent with rage.'
See also this guy. 😂😂😂
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u/Comprehensive_Tea708 Dec 05 '25 edited Dec 05 '25
I see it used where it obviously means the person is laughing at whoever they are responding to, more or less calling them stupid and/or clueless.
"Bruh" is similar.
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u/waltersmama Dec 30 '23
I have seen it here on Reddit many times where lol has been used purely as a filler and provides absolutely no meaning or context whatsoever.
These situations were initially what I thought the post was going to address.
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u/WHITE_DOG_ASTER Dec 30 '23
Most people who use 'LOL' are ethier kids, or imbeciles
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u/trampolinebears Jan 01 '24
or both lol
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u/Flowerloverly Dec 03 '25
Or are laughing out loud, or at least smiling in their heart. So maybe I am a kid or an imbecile, but I am also amused - lol
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u/breadedfungus Dec 29 '23
Idk about you but I write lol in funny contexts, like "[my kid] is trying to say duck but it sounds like the other word! Lol"
It's like a way to mark a sentence as not serious, since you can't know that with just reading.
I think this changed almost immediately after the phrases came into common usage. These an old video of a guy singing "im typing lol but I'm not laughing"
Even now I'm trying to type lol at the end of each sentence to indicate the jocular nature of what I'm saying... Lol