FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

LOL Is Dying

Nobody LOLs anymore, Grandpa.
Image by Clinton Nguyen

"LOL" may be going the way of "you've got mail" and other online anachronisms. A new Facebook study found that users vastly preferred using "haha" and emoji over the acronym, which found its roots in a text-only newsletter in 1989.

Facebook corralled de-identified user posts from the month of May and analyzed them for instances of laughter. What they found was:

  • 15 percent of statuses included some form of laughter.
  • 52 percent of people used "haha."
  • 33percent of people used emojis to laugh. Facebook highlighted these:

Advertisement

  • 2 percent of people used "LOL."

  • Women were more likely to use emoji to convey laughter.

  • Men like using "haha" more than women.

The study also broke down usage by geographic location, revealing some very interesting discrepancies between coasts and northern and southern states.

"LOL" sees more frequent and consistent use along the Deep South. "Haha" and "hehe" are fairly similar, though "haha" is more prevalent on the East Coast. And while emojis are scattered all around, Facebook notes that New Yorkers and Chicagoans are quite taken with them.

The study was undertaken as a response to a story about how we laugh online, published by The New Yorker in April.

The author of the story, Sarah Larson, noted that "haha" and its more intensified versions were the bread and butter of many of her friends' conversations, while variations conveyed more conditional subtleties: "heh" and "ha" would come off perhaps more derisive or could be shorthand for acknowledging a good point.

Perhaps by choosing "haha" and pictorial forms of laughter we're marching together one step closer to universal language. Or perhaps we're just finally growing out of our Usenet days.