Why Do Millennials Feel Compelled To Write 'Lol' After Everything?

When did “lol” become the equivalent of a punctuation mark for millennials?

Nick Russell, a millennial from Memphis, Tennessee, tacks “lol” onto texts to sidestep potentially awkward or loaded conversation.

“It’s the difference between texting ‘I think I love you’ to a crush versus ‘I think I love you, lol,‘” Russell said. “In the latter case, I could always rely on the old ‘just kidding!’”

“It helps lighten the internal tension I could be feeling about whatever I’m sending,” he added.

Rebecca Reynoso, a millennial from Chicago, deploys a breezy “lol” at the end of her work texts and chats to take the edge off any message. It’s a way to quickly establish tone; a “lol” tells her co-workers she’s “approachable” and “non-threatening.”

“It’s like a tension-breaking mechanism,” she told HuffPost.

It defuses the potential for hostility in personal relationships, too.“Could you wash the dishes, lol” to your spouse or roommate sounds a lot better than a coarse, curtly communicated, “Could you wash the dishes.” (If you hadn’t noticed, millennials and younger generations have killed off the question mark.)

Alex Liggett, a millennial from Pittsburgh, likens millennials’ “lol” overuse to “a scream at the state of the world.”

“My default mode is to feel that what I have to say isn’t important, so it’s also sort of a great eraser,” he said. “But I’ve transitioned to ‘haha’ instead of ‘lol’ because I read that ‘lol’ is millennial-coded.”

Let Gen Z and Gen Alpha scoff at “lol” all they want. Most millennials say if you want to take their “lol,” you’ll have to pry it from their cold, dead hands.

“Tone is just so hard to convey through text otherwise,” said Kashif Pasta, a director and writer who’s a millennial.

Too many emojis in