Am millennial and have never once used that acronym. I always just type "haha" instead... haha

Tone is an absolute bitch to convey properly over text, if you don't add indicators it's up to the reader to determine the tone you're using. Miscommunication causes larger problems. Using lol helps indicate a lighter tone so people don't think I'm pissed off or grumpy when I'm not

I had to teach myself to say lol all the time via text and it absolutely helps with tone, so does using emoji which was something else I had to force myself to do. I seem less mature I guess but I don’t come off as a blunt asshole anymore and my conversations go a lot smoother

What I want... No. What I need is a browser extension that would change every "lol" on every page into a small picture of a TIE Fighter. It would make that flyby noise if you put your mouse over it and you could blow it up by clicking.

Go fuck yourself, lol.

It masks all the sadness in my heart, lol.

Lol, no.

Also this is millennial thing, not GenX. I don't know anyone from that generation that would use lol.

The lol has contextual meaning though. Sometimes it means "you fucking idiot" and sometimes it means "thats funny" and sometimes it means "i dont care" etc.

You can pry my lol from my cold dead fingers lol

Lmao, even

Elder (and just old) millennial here. I remember "lol" became a thing because cell phones became a common thing. Specifically, the old flip phones.

Texting on them was a pain. Imagine having to type words with only a number pad. And you only had a tiny digital screen that could only fit a few words on it. On top of that, we were sometimes charged by the character. Or sometimes by the word. Depended on your service.

Everyone was looking for the shortest way to type words and get their message across. So shortcuts like "lol," "ily," "wdym," etc. became common use. As well as a variety of text emojis like :) :D :P or the fancy Japanese ones: (^_^) (-_-;;) etc.

As someone who spent their childhood with their nose buried in books, it bothered me to see this shorthand English everywhere. It just felt lazy to me. To this day, I've never typed "lol" unless I'm talking about the acronym itself.

I have a tendency to speak very blunt and directly about most things, so lol is absolute necessity for me online in order to not blatantly spread ragebait everywhere I go lol

But I really am laughing out loud. I am rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off. In a helicopter. A helicopter that goes swooshswooshswooshdwoosh.

Don't wanna, lmao

Life sucks, I'm poor, and everything hurts. Lol.

I'm Gen Z and I use lol as punctuation at the end of a sentence to indicate a lighthearted tone, just like a ? or ! indicate their respective tones. It's very useful, and I think I'll keep using it lol

It fills a similar niche to tone tags but somewhat less intrusive imo.

it's like "over" on a radio lol

lol is the millennials version of over, lol

Can't stop won't stop lol.

I was once sitting next to a colleague in a group pod who sent us an e-mail ending with "lol". I turned to my left and called him out on it because that dude was quiet as a mouse.

I'm gen X as all hell and I'll say lol when I want lol.

Excuse you, but it's lol, no.

There's no comma there. They use it as punctuation at the end of a sentence:

e.g.: "I heard your mother died I'm sorry lol"