Laughing Out Loud
September 21st, 2005 Ryan Jones
News Flash: (AOL Time Warner – San Francisco, CA) – AOL officials announced today that the period was officially banned on their network.
“No one uses it anymore anyway, lol †stated Steve Case, AOL chairman and CEO. “Instead, we will officially use the acronym “lol†as the termination character set for a sentence lol â€
Many users praised the move in IM policy as a blessing. †AFAIK It’s just more natural to to type †lol †than a stupid period lol IMHO AOL is showing their supreme l33tness by staying on top of popular internet trends ROFLOL†added frequent user PiXi69.
In response to the change, elite AOL members (sometimes referred to as Hax0rz or l4m3rz) have begun using alternate endings such as: ROFL, ROFLOL, ROFLMAO, ROFLOLBAG, ROFPML, LTIP, and the vulgar version: LMFAO.
“When we got down to it we were faced with a tough choice, †said Case who was forced to choose between using †lol †or †j/k †as the end of the sentence. “It was a hard decision to make but in the end “lol†seemed the obvious choice. Typing †j/k †just seemed too hard, and we didn’t want our users to have to look at their keyboard all the time to find the / button lolâ€
Along with the press release, AOL Time Warner also issued a 12 page document on the proper uses of “lolâ€.
“Where the period simply defined the end of a sentence, lol is more universal,†noted AOL spokesperson Cathy Thompson.†Lol can be used after a question mark, after an exclamation point, or really anywhere in a sentece lol, this universal attribute allows our users to really get their thoughts across without explicitly having to type them out lolâ€.
Despite talks, AOL has not issued a statement regarding the rumored decision about changing the ; button to 😉 “In my 10+ years as CEO, I’ve never seen anyone use the ; for reasons other than making smilies, so why not just eliminate a keystroke and make typing simpler lol †said Case who declined to comment on whether or not this change would take effect in the near future.
So what’s next on AOL’s roadmap? “We are currently in negotiations with Harvard Press and the New York Times, along with Webster Inc., to officially purchase the english language lol†cited Case at a recent technology conference in Las Vegas called ‘Loving AOL More Everyday’ (LAME). Supporters of the proposal to purchase english cite the fact that cultural resources like language and religion are always better handled by large, uncaring corporations.
“Imagine what integration of IM words into english would mean in everyday life lol†noted tech analyst Roger Dumphres. “We could save the government a lot of money by firing all english teachers and simply letting the kids spell phonetically like they do online lol †Other contenders to purchase the english language are Microsoft, who seeks to complicate it further and then re-release it as a standard, and the RIAA, who plans to collect royalties on every word spoken.
A new AOL – Microsoft partnership is expected soon as negotiations with Microsoft are under way to convert the little used right click key to a “lol†key, thus decreasing the total amount of typing by some 37%.
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