LOL-itics

I was like fifteen years old and in one of those new-fangled "Yahoo chat rooms" (probably masquerading as a gay guy, as was my custom back then) the first time I saw the acronym "LOL." Only it was lowercase (lol), and in whatever font they used, it looked like "ioi" to me - so like the biggest chatroom dork evah, I asked what it meant.

Laughing out loud, I was told with a scorn that I could practically feel through the computer screen. Like duh.

These days, it's become so common that even my mom knows what "LOL" means (and she's from a time when people still named their kids Dick). But though it always means the same thing, there's not really a common usage. It's this huge gray area. I mean, is it punctuated? Capitalized? We'll use a text I sent Curtis as an example. The original, the way I typed it, said this:

That's my boy, LOL

But perhaps it should have been: That's my boy. LOL!

Or: That's my boy (lol) ... or That's my boy! lol ... or - well, you get the idea.

Sometimes I'm not sure whether to use LOL at all. Because I know there are people who are all, "The usage of acronyms is just lazy and stupid," while they adjust their glasses and flip to the next page of their Nietzsche novel or polish their globe or say words like sesquipedalian. So when I'm talking to such people, if I need to convey that something is funny, I just use the generic "ha ha."

Then there's the big question: should you use LOL if you are, in fact, not really "laughing out loud?"

(If you're interested, you can find a whole Wikipedia article on the use of LOL here. I tried to read it but it made my brain hurt about two paragraphs in.)

So tell me, y'all: do you use LOL? How? And are you genuinely LOL'ing (??) when you do?

PS - There's a very strange update to yesterday's "Sorta-Sacrilegious Sunday" post! Check it out ... LOL!