LOL RIP

While the rise of online chat and text messaging (and syntactic idiocy) has led to an increase in febrile three-letter abbreviations, none are more grating than "LOL." This absurd sobriquet has exceeded, on the annoying-meter, such Joycean utterances as OMG and BFD. Why?

1) It's inescapable. LOL (which is not an acronym, as many people incorrectly assume, because it is does not serve as an accepted word like "RADAR" or "NASA") reached the exhaustion point within the first week of its inauguration. It is increasingly difficult to read a single electronic "dialog" without this three-lettered beast volleying between its neanderthal authors.

2) You are not actually laughing out loud. You have nothing literate to say in response to an amusing comment (and I'll bet it was quite the bon mot), therefore you resort to Pavlovian hackery. It has truly become the phony laugh-track of the digital age.

3) You are not 14. Yes, that is the "LOL" cut-off. If you are, heaven forbid, an adult in a business setting and you find yourself tapping out these letters (or, for that matter, writing "411" instead of "information"), please realize that yours is an empty existence.