The Blatant Overuse of LOL, ROFLOL and Other Electronic Acronyms

I recently got an e-mail from a friend with the following acronym in it: FMTYEWTK. Not being a frequent acronym user, I was a little confused as to what he was trying to tell me. Later in the letter he also used LSHMBH and WYSITWIRL, which made me wonder if I needed some kind of special Superhero Decoder Ring in order to translate his message. I realize we live in a world that is moving too fast, and people just don’t have time to write out entire sentences anymore, but come on!!! What the hell am I supposed to make of a bunch of letters strung together in a nonsensical fashion unless I’m already privy to the secret language it’s composed in?

I think some e-mail, text message and IM users have forgotten that some of us still live in the real world where communication means using actual words and phrases instead of generic fillers like LOL (laugh out loud) and ROFLOL (rolling on the floor laughing out loud). These two acronyms have been used so often, you’d think we had a nation of giddy idiots. Every time I see ROFLOL used in blog postings or in e-mails, I immediately begin to imagine what the person looks like as he’s rolling on the floor laughing so hard. And if he uses the abbreviation more than once in a paragraph, I’m tempted to call the local Psych Ward to go check him out. After all, if someone can’t control themselves from falling on the floor in a fit of laughter, they may have something akin to epilepsy, which is certainly nothing to laugh at.

And I also don’t think everything that someone says or thinks is LOL funny. I rarely laugh out loud, except in the privacy of my own home. So when someone describes their day, and uses the LOL acronym after every sentence, I begin to wonder how good their sense of humor actually is. “I went to see my mother. LOL. She was in the hospital. LOL. The nurse was very cute. LOL. I ate all her Jell-O cubes. LOL. She got mad at me. LOL. Told me never to come back unless I brought ice cream. LOL.” As with everything, less is more.

Another variation of this acronym is ROTFLMAOWPIMP, which literally means “Rolling on the floor laughing my a** off while peeing in my pants.” I don’t think I need to tell you what kind of colorful imagery that phrase invokes.

Students and twenty-somethings are probably the biggest abusers of this new form of electronic language, because they’re the ones obsessed with text-messaging their friends at every opportunity they get. A visit with my nieces now means frequent interruptions in our conversation; because they must constantly respond to the other five “text” conversations they’re having at the same time. Undivided attention appears to be a thing of the past, as multi-tasking conversations is now the “new Black.”

I guess I wouldn’t mind all the acronyms, if they were short and made sense. But right now, it takes so much time to figure out what each letter means that reading a simple one-paragraph e-mail might require a half hour of deciphering. Especially for someone like me, who falls into the “PCMCIA” category (People can’t master computer industry acronyms). And don’t get me wrong, I love a mystery. I just don’t think every e-mail should be akin to solving the Sunday Junior Jumble.

At any rate, I felt the need to expound on this topic for some reason. So for those of you who are also a little shaky when it comes to cracking an acronym, here are the meanings of the various phrases in the first paragraph. LSHMBH means “Laughing so hard my belly hurts” (Maybe you should go see a doctor about this) and WYSITWIRL means “What you see is TOTALLY WORTHLESS IN REAL LIFE!” (I can’t even imagine ever having the need to use this phrase, so I’m still not sure what my friend was trying to convey with it either.)

But perhaps the most important acronym is the very first one, FMTYEWTK, which means “Far more than you ever needed to know,” a clear reference to how I feel about the content of this post.

But that’s just me. What do you think about the overuse of acronyms?

You Have No Idea, I Think I Peed a Little, and Other Overused Jokes in Film and TV

Ever since Jeremy Irons uttered the famous words “You have no idea” in the movie “Reversal of Fortune,” the phrase has become a standard punch line in hundreds of movie and television scripts. It’s an easy joke, as you can put almost any question in front of it and you’re guaranteed a laugh.

“You’re a rather odd person, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”

“Is your mother a bad cook?”
“You have no idea.”

“This phrase is horribly overused, don’t you think?”
“You have no idea.”

You’ve probably heard this expression many times without even realizing it. Maybe you even laughed at the reference in every single sitcom it’s ever been employed in. But now that you’re aware movie and television writers use it repeatedly, you’ll be more tuned in to how many times you actually hear it.

Another phrase/joke that has been drummed into our heads is “I think I peed a little.” I can’t even remember what movie or TV show this first appeared in. But soon after that, the joke was used so many times it wasn’t funny anymore. The saying usually occurs when someone is laughing very hard and can’t seem to stop long enough to control their urinary functions. The first time it was used, it was very funny. The second time, it was mildly amusing. But now that it’s become a standard expression in pop culture, I’m beginning to wonder if our nation has a much more serious problem on our hands. Since so many people seem to be affected by Uncontrollable Bladder Syndrome.

My point is, I’m tired of writers going for the easy joke. When I hear the same kind of dialogue and jokes used over and over again, it’s an insult to my intelligence. It’s like saying “You’ve heard this joke before, but you’re so dumb, you won’t realize it’s the same joke if I change the words around a little.” Well, guess what? We’re not that dumb. We know when someone is ripping off an old joke to fill a space. It makes for boring television.

Sitcoms are the worst examples of repeated dialogue. The same writers tend to be moved around in Hollywood, shuffling from one sitcom to another, or one drama to another. So it’s understandable that they bring their same style with them from project to project. But do they also have to bring the same jokes? Can’t they come up with something original they haven’t used before? No wonder there aren’t many sitcoms on television right now. The writers have obviously run out of fresh ideas, and the public is tired of the same recycled material.

But that’s just me. What overused phrases have you noticed on TV or in films?