Lying out Loud

I guess I have come to accept that people for the sake of convenience will use "netspeak" or "chatspeak" for all possible written correspondence, but with convenience we must not let the wolf of insincerity sneak into the livestock-tending field that is today's Internet. In my communique with co-workers using electronic means, I am often told that my colleague is "[laughing out loud]" at something that has been said or done. I am not offended that they choose to use a term populated by 12 year old girls. However, the very base of me is shaken by the silence accompanying the typed slang.

Do you think I can't hear that you're not laughing? Not laughing at all, not even a giggle. (Full disclosure: your blogmaster commonly types "haha" as if to express amusement electronically, since this is not a statement of what he is actually doing at that time.)

Does this disconnect signify something greater? Is society slowly losing its footing in a digital realm where accountability can always be avoided. Cases in point: People who make physical (!) threats to each other on the response boards appearing below YouTube videos; and anonymous bloggers.

It confounds me as to why this posturing is necessary, or perhaps more troubling, why something has come to be used for a purpose what is inherently the opposite of what is intended for. Laughing... Out Loud, it should be used as when one has been made to chuckle, not a simple robotic response to what is viewed as an attempt at humor. What if other facets of our society worked like this?

You walk into your favorite deli in March and buy some corned beef, and you put mustard on it and eat it. It is tremendous, even without a bun. It truly is worth the stains you carry with you back to your corner office. In June you go to the same place and make the same order, only to find that you have been served tofu made to taste like corned beef, and no amount of mustard and lack of bun is going to make you happy. This time the stains on your your pants might be blood stains -- unfortunately not cow blood. The butcher might say, "Well I originally used the 'corned beef sign' to sell what was actually salted cow flesh, but when I was shipped different products, I kept using the sign, because it was the only sign that went in that spot and it has always signified that the food behind it tasted like corned beef."

My colleagues who type "lol" when they are not truly laughing out loud, are these butchers, using the same answer to anything considered funny, no matter the actual substance behind it.