It’s me. I’m going to go ahead and cut to the chase. I’m slightly self-aware, so I knew that I had this particular non-verbal tic that I will write out “haha” all the time in Slack, text messages, Discord, et cetera.
Often, this is a reaction to something funny, but not always. Sometimes it’s just conversational filler. Sometimes what I mean by “haha” is that I’m relieved. Sometimes it’s a “haha” of resignation as in “Haha, we’re all screwed.”
That last “haha” is sort of inspired by this great tweet by our old pal Chris Persons:
THERAPIST: you've started calling objectively awful things "insanely good" to protect yourself from how awful the world is
ME: lol that owns— oddly specific wirecutter alternative (@Papapishu) June 25, 2016
For David: Nelson Muntz is a character on The Simpsons and his schtick is that he laughs “ha ha” at the misfortunate of other people:
This should probably be written “haw haw” but I just write it “haha” like everything else.
So, I was aware I had this tick. I wasn’t aware that everyone else noticed this until it came up in Slack this week. I had a post ready to go but I wanted to look at it one more time before it was published. I wasn’t clear about this to Peter, though I did respond “haha” to his topshot:
That was when it dawned on me that, yes, I do say “haha” so often and in so many situations that “haha” could reasonably be perceived as “yes” in this case.
Don’t believe me? Haha.
There’s more.
Thomas sometimes does it, so I’m not entirely alone.
That “haha, that’s so badass” is a “haha” of immense celebration and I was celebrating a video from our editor Erica Lourd, who was showing off pics of her dad’s Caprice PPV:
Note, these are all from within the last week, but it’s nice to see I’m rubbing off on other people.
The Hotcars one was definitely a Nelson Muntz “haha” and was in response to this Tweet about how certain sites that were doing a bunch of spammy, crummy SEO nonsense and using AI to write their stories ended up losing a bunch of Google traffic:
These are the sites with the greatest % declines in Google SEO visibility between September 4, 2023 and April 22, 2024 (@Sistrix data)
Gee, notice anything totally obvious, or is it just me?
Sorry to anyone who works on any of these sites, I know a lot of you are seeing this. I… pic.twitter.com/5MH22V6Mtk
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) May 3, 2024
That’s a little mean, but…
That “hah, so we’re not that far behind” was an apology “haha” because we’d forgotten to put up one of SWG’s reels from January! Sorry SWG.
I may be the main “haha” person in our Slack, but I’m not the only one with a similar habit. Mercedes is a “lol” person:
That was from within a 90-minute period!
Here’s all-timer from today:
We also love references to The Simpsons…
Matt’s even done it to me. I have a text from him that starts out with a Haha when he probably meant Okay.
I am guilty of many, many lols and emoticons myself so I share some shame.
Does he also use Milhouse’s glasses as a flint for lighting a fire?
Custom reaction emojis are my favorite part of Slack. Sometimes I’ll spend a few minutes just searching for the perfect *chef’s kiss* emoji.
I do contract work for various tech companies and I have found that the number and quality of custom Slack emoji is 100% predictive of how much I’ll enjoy my stint there. My main contract is a joyless company almost entirely made up of people from cultures outside the US, which there’s really nothing wrong with, but man, that place is such a drag, and they don’t have *any* custom emoji. Nobody talks to each other or works together.
The previous engagement was a mess, but the staff was awesome to work with and they had buttloads of emoji like a Janus-like :lolsob: and :doge: and lots of fast parrots.
Pretty sure I added :malort:, :lump: and :parsh: when I got Slack access at work. (We’re based in Chicago — SOMEONE had to add :malort:!)
Nelson was haw haw before the internet. I thought the reference was due to your physical similarities. HAWHAW. Did DT actually use internet abbreviations and did he do it correctly or was it a typo?
No I can’t because I honestly don’t know the character. Still never made it through an episode.
Well I wonder you attacked me and say I shouldn’t comment if I don’t know the information. And yet you comment here while admittedly ignorant? Please explain why you can comment and you attacked me for comment?
What?! I have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t recall attacking you ever unless I was entirely jesting and it got misunderstood. I’ve always liked you.
Okay let’s just forget it and agree to disagree,
Okay, but I doubt I do disagree. Again, always liked you. Ask Matt if you doubt that at all. It’s not fun to have people dislike you and I don’t want you to think I ever once did. And I hope you don’t dislike me. That would make me sad.
I know you covered me. I have no issue you are good here. I never get offended by any posts. But I do at the end of the day just decide to quit. I like your posts but hey if I think something is funny I’m posting it. I appreciate you crank shaft.dont worries
https://tenor.com/view/daddy-chill-gif-7976646695102166002
As someone who shares an uncommon attribute with Nelson I eschew both lol and haha for the singular Ha!
Ah, so you favor Edna Krabappel
B/c of our collective noted ability to be personally offended by broad automotive trends no doubt.
She’s hot she’s easy love me some Edna.
I was described the other day as a mutant clone of James Robertson-Justice and Leslie Phillips.
I would have guessed that is was you before I clicked on this Matt.
I think I’m too used to Matt’s hahas. My bet was on Peter.
I use haha almost as frequently as you. It is generally an acknowledgement, more then actual laughter. Friends had pointed out that when I actually laugh at something funny I usually say Ha HAA, so when trying to relay actual laughing in text with friends I will type Ha HAA. Never been a big user of lol. I don’t know if this is a generational thing, as we are of similar ages, or what, but having grown up with instant messenger , and using the internet for communication, it seems like everyone has a simple catch all “humor response”. ha/haha/lol/rofl/lolz/iaohdl/etc….
life is pain and I will mask it with laughter
Wait, did you out the Bishop?! Or does his pseudonym express an appreciation of both epic action and scifi movies?
Shh…
*tents fingers*
Excellent…
That sort of thing is more properly called a tic.
In Slack, perhaps you could use ‘nelson’ when you mean his distinctive utterance and ‘haha’ to express regular laughter.
Ticks do tend to be non-verbal.
SPOOOOON!
LOL
i’m such a compulsive typer of “lol” that i say “lol” in actual conversation
For the first time I heard someone say lol in real life last week and I stopped mid conversation and just stared at them like I was Samuel L Jackson in Black Snake Moan
https://media1.tenor.com/m/ss-5LOsl6UMAAAAC/stare-sam-jackson.gif
Same, as one word (“lawl”) to the point that when I hear people say ell-oh-ell I cringe.
haha wait’ll they get a load of me
haha why so serious
haha forgive my laughter i have a condition
I’m totally a lol’er, in that I end probably half of the messages I send through Gchat with “lol”. I compulsively use lol, mostly (I think) to imply a somewhat joking tone?
These are the last 3 messages I sent to a group…
“everything right off the bridge is brand new concrete lol”
“there’s no way they did all that work only to close the bridge forever lol”
“fascinating that they had already done some repairs like, 5 years ago lol”
Those lols are 100% unnecessary soooo, yeah, I might want to improve on that…
lol
David understood a reference?
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d5/ea/d8/d5ead85146001741a48f8610b864cf0f.jpg
A Nelson “haha” is better than a Roberto “Hahaa!”.
Now stand back, I gotta practice my stabbing!