Editing LOL (section)

==History==
In the early to mid-1980s,<ref name="Tam2015">{{Cite news |last=Tam |first=Jimmy |date=August 11, 2015 |title=RIP to LOL - the history of laughing out loud |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-33858624 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423143306/https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-33858624 |archive-date=April 23, 2021 |access-date=November 27, 2024 |work=[[BBC News]] |language=en-GB}}</ref> Wayne Pearson was reportedly the first person to have used LOL while responding to a friend's joke in a pre-Internet digital chat room called Viewline. Instead of writing "hahaha," as he had done before when he found something humorous, Pearson stated that he instead typed "LOL" to symbolize extreme laughter.<ref>{{cite web |last=Love |first=Shayla |date=March 15, 2022 |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-we-use-lol-so-much/ |title=Why We Use "lol" So Much |work=VICE.com |access-date=22 March 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Hudes |first1=Sammy |date=7 October 2015 |title=What's it like to coin the term LOL? |url=https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/whats-it-like-to-coin-the-term-lol |work=Calgary Herald |access-date=22 March 2022}}</ref> Although the account is commonly accepted as true, no written record of the conversation has been found, and the exact date of origin is unknown.<ref name=":1" />{{rp|82-83}} The earliest recorded mention of LOL in the contemporary meaning of "Laughing Out Loud" was made in a list of common online acronyms on the May 8, 1989 issue of the electronic newsletter ''[[FidoNews]]'', according to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''<ref name="Tam2015" /> and linguist [[Ben Zimmer]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Collister |first=Lauren B. |date=May 28, 2015 |title=How do you haha? LOL through the ages |url=https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-haha-lol-through-the-ages-41562 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240725033522/https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-haha-lol-through-the-ages-41562 |archive-date=July 25, 2024 |access-date=November 27, 2024 |website=[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]] |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":1" />{{rp|83}}

A 2003 study of college students by [[Naomi Baron]] found that the use of these initialisms in [[computer-mediated communication]] (CMC), specifically in [[instant messaging]], was actually ''lower'' than she had expected. The students "used few abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons". Out of 2,185 transmissions, there were 90 initialisms in total;<ref name="Philipkoski2005" /> 76 were occurrences of LOL.<ref name="Baron2005" />[[File:Buesum molenfeuer lol rofl.JPG|thumb|2008 graffiti featuring LOL and ROFL on the Molenfeuer lighthouse in [[Büsum]], Germany]]On March 24, 2011, LOL, along with other [[Acronym and initialism|acronyms]], was formally recognized in an update of the ''Oxford English Dictionary''.<ref name="omglol" /><ref name="mason">{{cite web |author=Marsia Mason |date=April 4, 2011 |title=OMG, K.I.D.S., IMHO, Needs to Go |url=http://moorestown.patch.com/articles/omg-kids-imho-needs-to-go |access-date=April 9, 2011 |publisher=Moorestown Patch}}</ref> In their research, it was determined that the earliest recorded use of LOL as an initialism was for "little old lady" in the 1960s.<ref name="oed">{{cite encyclopedia |title=New initialisms in the OED |dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary |url=http://www.oed.com/public/latest/latest-update/ |access-date=March 28, 2011 |date=March 24, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110325151212/http://www.oed.com/public/latest/latest-update/ |archive-date=March 25, 2011 |author=Graeme Diamond |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Gabriella Coleman]] references "lulz" extensively in her anthropological studies of [[Anonymous (group)|Anonymous]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Norton |first=Quinn |date=July 18, 2010 |title=Why Do Anonymous Geeks Hate Scientologists? |url=https://gizmodo.com/5590049/why-do-anonymous-geeks-hate-scientologists |access-date=February 17, 2012 |website=Gizmodo}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Coleman |first=Gabriella |title=Our Weirdness Is Free: The logic of Anonymous — online army, agent of chaos, and seeker of justice |url=http://canopycanopycanopy.com/15/our_weirdness_is_free |access-date=February 17, 2012 |publisher=Triple Canopy}}</ref>

LOL, ROFL, and other initialisms have crossed from computer-mediated communication to face-to-face communication. David Crystal{{snd}}likening the introduction of LOL, ROFL, and others into spoken language in magnitude to the revolution of [[Johannes Gutenberg]]'s invention of [[movable type]] in the 15th century{{snd}}states that this is "a brand new variety of language evolving", invented by young people within five years, that "extend[s] the range of the language, the expressiveness [and] the richness of the language".<ref name="Ulaby2006" /><ref name="Philipkoski2005" /> However [[Geoffrey Pullum|Geoffrey K. Pullum]] argues that even if interjections such as LOL and ROFL were to become very common in spoken English, their "total effect on language" would be "utterly trivial".<ref name="Pullum2005" />

While LOL originally meant "laughing out loud," modern usage is different, and it is commonly used for irony, as an indicator of second meanings, and as a way to soften statements.<ref name=":1" />