I'm going to bite your keyboard in half. LOL!

Alright, we are going to attempt to take on the raging beast that is the acronym "LOL".
(deep breaths) Here we go:
First, what is it?
LOL, is a common element of Internet slang. (thank you, Wikipedia)
What does LOL mean?

Many people who have not been brought up with the term can be quite confused.

Losers On Lollipops?

No. It doesn't mean any either of those.

Historically, it's been known to mean the person using it is "Laughing Out Loud."
But, like so many other things, the meaning has completely changed from what it once was. When people type "LOL," they almost never mean, "I'm laughing audibly about what I just read!" Quite the opposite actually.

When someone types "LOL," the best possible situation is something like this:

Though it's rarely the case, as you can see, the figure above is actually "laughing out loud."
More commonly, when "LOL" is typed, the actual response is more like these examples:

Also, like any other popular term, there are many different variations. LOL, Lol, lol (whether the first L is supposed to be capitalized or not, such as at the beginning of a sentence), looooool (which some think doesn't quite mean the same thing as LOL, but is a close relative), lollllll (see explanation of previous example), and lolloloolololl…lololl. The final example is by far the most controversial due to it's lack of structure.
An example:
Lolloololololololooollo!
Now, we'll decipher: Laughing-out-loud-laughing-out-out-loud-out-loud (or maybe laughing?)-out-loud-out… As you can see, it really turns to gibberish and is quite impossible to parse anything intelligible from it.


Now this is all dandy, but there is an evil side to the acronym. People are starting to use "LOL" as a filler to mean just about anything. It will be thrown in during an IM conversation out of no where and it's up to the victim to try and guess what the sender could've meant. It can lead to a very confusing conversation.

Another frightening side of the term is that people these days use it in everyday speech. When something funny is said, instead of laughing, some simply say out loud "LOL." It's really quite inexplicable.
Actual laughing has been in use for millennia to send the message that LOL is supposed to send, and in a clearer manner. So the logic behind using an acronym isn't quite clear.

The problems relating to this practice are obvious: if it's not stopped, it will soon come to take over the entire language!

The Earth will be covered in nothing but a bunch of zombies who can make only one sound, "LAWL."

To fight this, we must stab the beast in its heart. We have to change the way we show laughter through text. Maybe through onomatopoeias? Meaning, instead of talking about it, we simply write the sound we're making. Like, "Haha," or "Heh," or even "Ahaha." Then, if we used those in common speech, we'd simply laugh!