On Tuesday morning at 8:02am to be exact, I cracked a witty joke and I was very pleased with myself. The person on the other end of the face-to-face conversation reacted with three “has” (as in ha ha ha) to be exact, followed by “Lol.” Yes. “Lol. Laugh Out Loud.” The abbreviation which people use in text messages to indicate that something is funny. She used it in real life. Said it instead of actually laughing, sending me into murderous rage for the nth time since the trend began. As always, I tilted my head backwards, frowned and squinted to express my disappointment. That’s all I can do these days. My courage for getting into physical altercations has been missing since my last brawl at ten years of age left me on the ground eating dust and looking completely disheveled. And so now I am here in my safe space to quarrel with and appeal to everyone who, like my friend, thinks that it’s okay to use text message abbreviations more so in voice conversation. You people. What is it? Are you too busy to laugh? Or is your head sitting so heavily on your neck that instead of shaking your head you have to say “SMH”? I have been accused of being stuck-up when I refuse to chat with people (especially suitors) on the basis of using abbreviations instead of full words and phrases.After all, they say, using abbreviations is time-saving and gets the job done. Look. I am no scientist or conversational expert but I know for surethat “Are you okay?” sounds a lot more authentic and genuine than “r u k”And I’m sure that I am not the only one who feels energy gush out of your body when you send out a long and heartfelt message only for the person to respond with “thx” or “k”. Now it seems to me that there is no end in sight for the trend. It started with texting “lol” when in actual sense the person’s face is notshowing so much as a smile. Now people are saying “lol”in voice conversations instead of laughing. Thereafter, people will stop talking to each other altogether and start using emojis so that instead of telling someone you love them, you use your hands to make the shape of a heart. It seems to me that people are intent on finding lazier and lazier ways to express their feelings and inevitably passing them on onto their children until one day there is a generation of robots who avoid human interaction altogether and communicate to each other via prerecordedmindreading technologies. Okay maybe that’s a stretch but I assure you, nothing good could possibly come of this trend. So I beg of you in the name of God please stop. You don’t have to be cool. Social media trends don’t have to rule your life so much so that youforgot how to express your emotions.
