Since the early 2000s, people have flagrantly HATED on LOL. I should know, I was one of them. “LOL? What are you, in third grade? Are you my mom? Noob.”
But then something unexpected happened. LOL (or lol, as is more socially acceptable and says ‘not trying too hard’) started to become the language of the internet again. There was a LOL revival, in which internet people who’d once turned their backs on LOL suddenly found it fit for ironic use. This can be traced back to 4chan’s “Caturday” meme, which was the springboard for the “Lolcat” (and later, was responsible for the advent of I Can Has Cheezburger).
Then, a “z” got added to the end. LOLZ. This happened to OMG, too. OMGZ. And the added ‘z’ was supposed to say, I’m not really LOLing, don’t confuse me with an internet fetus who has just discovered LOL or someone who believes that LOL stands for “lots of love.” I’m just a 28-year-old pretending that I’m a 13-year-old kid from The Valley. Get it? OMGZ! Other variations sprung up, including “lulz,” “lawls,” “lollercoaster,” and my personal favorite, “cerebral lawlsy.” So LOL, in a sense, had made a comeback.
The thing about doing something “ironically” is that, if you do it often enough, it’s not irony anymore – it’s just your life. If you are wearing an ironic mustache, and you spend most of your spare time shaping your ironic mustache, and thinking about implements you can purchase to make mustache maintenance easier… that’s not irony. That’s you having a mustache. Such was the case with LOL. I was using LOL so frequently, so carelessly, that it became a part of my vernacular again. And this time, it’s indispensable.
Whenever I LOL, I think of it as a homage to the past, a “sup” to the throwback internet I grew up on. I don’t get why there have been so many calls to abolish it. That’s why I’m exceedingly happy that the Oxford English Dictionary has chosen to immortalize LOL by adding it to the dictionary. FUCK. YES. LOL’s good friend, OMG, also became an official member of the lexicon.
In addition, the following “noteworthy” words can be found in your Oxford English Dictionary:
- couch surfing
- ego-surfing
- hentai
- la-la land
- meep
- muffin top
- party-crashing
- wassup
- <3
Congratulations to those who have fought in the face of adversity for the continuous, unrelenting use of LOL. We did it, you guys!! LOL.
