Last week, I sent a text message to a friend. A Hollywood business meeting I had high hopes for had been suddenly “postponed”.
“Everybody cancelled except me,” I texted.
She texted back, “Haha.”
What’s so funny about it, I wondered? Where’s the ‘haha’ in my disappointment? My text was more sad than funny; her text steamed me. Dismissed twice.
“Haha” and its partner, “LOL,” are texting’s go-to replies, a vaguely complimentary, vaguely condescending way to acknowledge a text has been received.
I once wrote about the overuse of the superlative “amazing,” and, predictably, almost everyone I knew who read the piece told me it was an “amazing” article. Haha. Good one. LOL.
But the use of “amazing” is paltry compared with “haha” and “LOL”. “OMG”, I bet there are serious stats somewhere. Maybe the National Security Agency could confirm it: I’d guess “haha” and “LOL” are approaching one billion “sends” a day, about three “hahas” and three “LOL”s for every American.
My 20-year-old friend Ida is the Barry Bonds of “haha”. I could break my femur and that’s what I’d get back from her. And fast. In the Texting Hall of Fame, Ida will be first ballot.
I can pretty much predict when I’ll get the response. The single “ha” is employed for something that approaches humour, but more likely is a statement bordering on the ludicrous. For example, I text you, “Lets go 2 Aleppo, Syria”; you reply, “Ha.”
Less ludicrous, more humour and “haha” comes back. “LOL”s require being a bit funnier, but not much.
Approaching hysteria
Once, a text I sent got a “hahahahaha”. Two “haha”s, one “ha”. Not too shabby for a gang reporter. Someone told me a cousin of a friend of theirs once got a “hahahahahahahahaha” (nine), but this guy exaggerates, so maybe he only got a “hahahahahahaha” (seven) — which is nothing to laugh at. It might have taken Richard Pryor in his prime to get “hahahahahahahahaha” (nine) or even a “hahahahahahahaha” (eight). Still, even if Pryor got a string of “haha”s, it wouldn’t be as good as “LOLLOLLOLLOLLOL” (five). Now, that’s very funny. That’s someone approaching hysteria. That’s someone bent over, hands on their thighs, panting heavily just to recuperate from the laughter that may have even brought them to tears.
And though technically five “LOL”s have about the same number of characters as “that’s very funny,” they can be typed 2.4 seconds quicker. I’m pretty sure.
And therein lounges the lure of these two text messages: Speed. Ease of thumb typing.
And then, simple laziness or maybe social desperation: The way you politely laugh at a story someone tells at a party, even though it isn’t funny, you can now “haha” by mobile device.
Even if a text is funny, no one is really laughing. Walk down any street and people have their heads down, staring at their phones, texting or looking at texts. None of them is laughing out loud. They aren’t even smiling. They might be typing “haha” or “LOL”, but they are not living the text, not texting the truth.
If they were, you would be able to stick your head out of any office building in America and hear uncontrolled laughter. (I don’t know about other countries. I mean, do Russians “haha”? I bet Russian teenagers do. “Crimea back in da house!” “Haha.”)
I’m not saying you shouldn’t “haha” or “LOL”, but maybe change it up every now and then. Maybe frame a real response.
And yeah, I’ll get a lot of texts about this. You know what they’ll say.
— Los Angeles Times
Michael Krikorian is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer and the author of a crime novel Southside.
