fake laughing, a reflection on the great 'lol' epidemic

me writing this right now is heavily influenced by a book i just read by the mighty chuck klosterman called, 'eating the dinosaur.' you should probably go out and buy that book. while i don't feel like it's totally necessary to reference a famous author as inspiration for something i write on this here silly blog, it seems like the honest thing to do. and what i'm about to get into has a whole lot to do with honesty.

fake laughing. we're all guilty of doing it. we do it on the internet... constantly. lol, lmao, lmfao, rofl... just recently i've run into a newer one, ctfu (cracking the fuck up. i know what you're thinking, why another four letter acronym to express fake laughter when there's already two others out there that are well known? goes to show you just how committed we are at faking our laughter). we use it in real life when the moment could get awkward without it. sometimes it's a bad joke. sometimes it's one of those moments where you have nothing to say and the only thing that will fill the void is a halfhearted chuckle that has nothing to do with you  finding anything funny at all. 

in principle, i find fake laughter deplorable. the more i think about it, the more i wanna cast it out of my life. the whole thing is based on dishonesty which pretty much makes every fake laugh a lie. and lying is wrong. sure, sometimes a little fake laugh can help smooth out an awkward social situation, but we shouldn't want to smooth it over. sometimes we just gotta let awkward be awkward and stop trying so hard to make the moment something it's not. 

on the other hand, getting by without fake laughter seems highly implausible. i fake laugh all the time. i fake laugh when people say something they think is funny but it really isn't as a way of sparing their feelings. many times i'm saying something silly or maybe not even that silly but maybe slightly uncomfortable or odd and i'll find myself following it up with a fake laugh... almost to convince whoever else is around that whatever i just said isn't that bad. sometimes i think i'm funny but i'm really not and i laugh at myself but it's fake and i know it and i'm really just trying to sell other people on whatever it is i said which is ridiculous cuz i'm backing up an attempt at humor with a fake laugh which makes the attempt at humor pointless.

(i'd also like to take this time to note that i totally understand people fake laugh when i say something that's not funny or weird or uncomfortable or for whatever reason. i don't want anyone under the impression that i'm typing all of this while thinking i'm somehow exempt from being fake laughed at myself.) 

and on the internet or through text messages, fucking forget about it. if i don't use 'lol,' i'll use, 'haha,' as if that's any better. and the only reason i ever use either of these is because i'm afraid that the recipient will not be able to tell how serious (or more specifically, how unserious) i'm trying to be. but that's an insult to the recipient's intelligence. sure, i'm playing it safe and hedging the odds in my favor that the reaction won't be negative, but i'm also slightly calling the person on the other end stupid... or at least stupider than me.

when i first sat down to write this, it was almost my intent to come out manifesto style and swear off fake laughter forever. but given how ingrained it is into how we interact with each other, i don't know if that's possible. i'll make my best attempts to try not to fake laugh in the future. but sooner or later (more likely, sooner) i'm gonna find myself in a position where i'll figure faking a laugh will put me in a better situation than not laughing at all (some examples: a job interview, breaking up fights, talking to your significant other). the point is, sometimes fake laughter is all about survival. and while i like to assume that i, as well as everyone else in the world, values integrity, there comes a time where integrity can be sacrificed in the name of survival.