I can catch myself sometimes these days and all I do is laugh

[venta]

I rarely, if ever, write LOL. When I do, it tends to be in emails to people who understand that when I write it, it's a shortcut for "I actually am actually laughing out loud". In other situations (most recently, in reply to a comment of sammason's, which quite caught me off guard), I feel the need to spell out that whatever they've written has actually made me laugh. Out loud. If I haven't caused at least three colleagues to turn round and look enquiringly at me, it just ain't LOL-worthy.

Because sometimes, I feel like I don't laugh much. In general, I'd say I'm very easily amused. Yet frequently I'll read a mildly diverting page on t'web, only to find comments along the lines of "crying with laughter, here". And I think: what, really? It didn't cause me to make any audible expression at all. Yes, I know humour is subjective. And yes, how funny you find something depends very much on what you're doing - if you're already laughing, a slight joke can make you laugh all the harder. Am I just hard to entertain in written form?

I do wonder that perhaps a lot of the things that make me LOL do so by being so unexpected. Things which have made me LOL on first reading rarely do so a second time, even though they remain funny. Of course, the downside of being caught on the hop by funny stuff is that it's just as likely to cause a
tea | nose > keyboard
scenario as a LOL.

Some people seem to exhale LOLs and lolols with every sentence. Either they are continually in a state of near hysteria, or they take the expression less seriously than I do.

Do you laugh out loud a lot reading the web? Do you LOL?

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I laugh out loud a lot, I suppose. But I don't really write "lol" unless I'm taking the piss somehow, like saying something *isn't* funny by saying "lololol err not".

Another reason I left the Ladies Loos community: people would post very serious things like "I need to leave this abusive relationship, please give me some moral support and direct me to some resources" and some comments would say things like "Oh no that's terrible, I really feel for you lol. Look on this site for your local refuge lol. Good luck you're amazing." Really? *Really*? I can only assume they treat it as some kind of verbal punctuation mark like "over" when you're using a radio.

I did actually cry with laughter, and indeed roll on the floor, at spamusement's Carmen Sandiego drawing. When I look at it now I just snigger slightly. But at the time I literally couldn't stop laughing.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Aha that's another one - David Mitchell's soapbox on the Guardian website.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Soapbox certainly has made me laugh a lot in the past. I think this series has been firmly in the mildly diverting category, sadly.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I can only assume they treat it as some kind of verbal punctuation mark

That does kind of make sense. I think I over-use smiley faces, because I'm often slightly worried that the tone of a sentence isn't clear when written. Often it's basically short for "and you do know I'm joking and mean this in a friendly way, right?" So I guess using lol in that way is sensible. Still kinda weird in the sort of sentence you're quoting, mind.

[metame.livejournal.com]

Re: those Ladies Loos lols - I believe there is an occasional person with the mistaken belief that lol stands for "Lots of Love" which leads to some odd uses...

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh. *light dawns*

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

David Cameron is one such, famously.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

My mum thinks that. Hence the occasional email ending LOL, Mum.

I'd tell her, but she'd only forget.