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The Death of LOL: New Study Reports The Acronym's Decline and What's Taking Its Place

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Photo: DamselStock / Deviant Art and Emmanuel Hapsis

LOL seems to be everywhere. It's the title of a Miley Cyrus/Demi Moore straight-to-DVD movie. It crops up at the end of texts from your friends, when they want to say something harsh without any consequences.  And then there are the people who say EL OH EL out loud instead of laughing.  Based on all of this, one would think that LOL is the e-laugh of choice. But it's not even second runner-up!

Inspired by a New Yorker piece titled "HAHAHA vs. HEHEHE," Facebook decided to analyze how their users express laughter online in order to determine which e-laugh reigns supreme. Here's what they found:

1. Haha and its longer iterations (hahahahaha, for example) win hands down, followed by laughing emojis and hehe. LOL finishes in an embarrassing fourth place.

Photo: Facebook
Photo: Facebook

2. LOL seems like something the youths are responsible for. Turns out: not so much. The dashed lines in the graph below represent median age. LOL trends oldest out of the four e-laughs.

Photo: Facebook
Photo: Facebook

 

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3. Women prefer emojis. Men love haha and kind of like hehe. Meanwhile, LOL is but a mere blip on the radar.

Photo: Facebook
Photo: Facebook

 

4. E-laugh preference varies by city. San Francisco is a haha zone, only out haha-ed by Seattle. Chicago and New York love that laughing-so-hard-I'm-crying emoji. And again none for LOL.

Photo: Facebook
Photo: Facebook

5. Despite how much you and your friends use emojis, California is one of the few states that isn't ruled by their cuteness. That's unacceptable. We need to step it up, starting right now! Text me cute blue whales and pink parasols. Donald Trump will be giving out my cell number at his next press conference lol...I mean, hahahahaha.

Photo: Facebook
Photo: Facebook

 

Read the full report from Facebook.

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