# LOL
LOL, short for "laugh out loud," went from a niche BBS abbreviation in the late 1980s to one of the most-used pieces of internet slang in the world. What began as Canadian chatroom shorthand later got added to the Oxford English Dictionary and mutated into a whole family of laughter acronyms, from ROFL and LMAO to lulz and kek.
## Origin
The letters "LOL" predate the internet as a letter-writing shorthand for "lots of luck" or "lots of love"[4]. The modern "laugh out loud" reading traces back to a Canadian BBS called Viewline, where user Wayne Pearson says he coined it in the mid-1980s after a friend's joke on the chat made him actually laugh out loud alone in his room. Pearson admits he never saved the original log, so his claim is unverified[2].
The earliest confirmed printed appearance of LOL meaning "laugh out loud" is May 8th, 1989, on Page 10 of a FidoNews Newsletter that listed it in a glossary of online acronyms[4].
- **Platform:** Viewline BBS (coined) / FidoNews and GEnie (spread)
- **Creator:** Wayne Pearson (claimed)
- **Date:** 1989
## Overview
The strict original meaning was literal: someone typed LOL only when they actually laughed at their screen[2]. By the 2010s that reading was mostly gone. People type "lol" reflexively at the end of messages that aren't funny at all, closer to a punctuation mark or tone softener than a laughter cue[1]. Urban Dictionary bluntly summed up the shift by defining LOL as "this text briefly indicates I am not being hostile"[3].
The acronym also spawned a family of variants. ROFL ("rolling on floor laughing") and LMAO followed as escalations, while lulz, lawl, and kek picked up ironic or subcultural meanings, with kek in particular starting as a World of Warcraft rendering of "lol" that later spread on 4chan[4]. LOL got verbed too, showing up as "lol'd," "LOLed," and "lolling"[4]. Older readers sometimes still parse the letters as "lots of love," which produced a running joke about parents accidentally sending LOL in condolence messages[3].
## How It Spread
From Viewline the abbreviation jumped to GEnie, one of the big commercial online services of the era alongside CompuServe and Prodigy. Pearson and other Viewline users say they carried their jargon into GEnie's chatroom regulars, where LOL took off, and GEnie users then coined ROFL as an extension[2]. From there it moved through Usenet and other BBSes over the following decade.
The Oxford English Dictionary formally added LOL to its listings on March 25th, 2011, alongside OMG and FYI[4]. Actual usage started sliding as emoji took over. A Facebook internal study published by Trak.in in December 2016 found that "haha" was the most typed laugh marker on the platform, emoji second, and "lol" the least of the four options tested[4].
In April 2019, Mashable writer Nicole Gallucci wrote about her own "auto-lol" habit of ending unfunny messages with "lol," and asked linguists why the acronym had drifted into a tone marker roughly meaning "I'm not being hostile"[1].
## How to Use
"lol" is typically dropped at the end of a message, lowercase, to soften the tone or signal the sender isn't being serious. It often carries no actual laughter behind it[1]. Uppercase "LOL" still shows up but usually reads as more emphatic or performative. For heavier laughter people commonly reach for ROFL, LMAO, or the ironic kek instead[4].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is LOL?
LOL is a text abbreviation for "laugh out loud," widely used online since the late 1980s to mark laughter or, more recently, a friendly tone[1].
### Where did LOL come from?
Canadian BBS user Wayne Pearson says he coined LOL for "laugh out loud" on a chat system called Viewline in the mid-1980s[2], and its earliest confirmed printed use is a May 8th, 1989 FidoNews newsletter[4].
### What does LOL mean?
Literally "laugh out loud," although before the internet the same letters were used in letters to mean "lots of luck" or "lots of love"[4]. Today it's often used as a punctuation-like tone softener rather than a real laugh[1].
### How do you use LOL?
It's usually typed in lowercase at the end of a message to signal the sender isn't being hostile or overly serious, with actual laughter optional[1].
### Is LOL still popular?
It's still in heavy use but has been overtaken by other laugh markers. A 2016 Facebook study reported by Trak.in found "haha" and emoji beat "lol" among the four laughter options tested[4].
## References
1. [https://mashable.com/article/why-do-people-type-lol-when-they-arent-laughing-out-loud/]()
2. [https://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~crwth/LOL.html]()
3. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lol]()
4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lol]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/lol
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