THE PREMISE
So let's get right to it. What I want to discuss today is:
The people who say: "there are only two
types of people in this world..."
A lot of people do just that with a lot different qualifiers:
People who:
...like Hamburger or like Cheeseburger
...Eat pizza with their hands or Eat pizza with a knife and fork
...drink tea or drink coffee
...like Pepsi or like Coke
...like Mac or like PC
...like Beer or like liquor
But there is something flawed with these sorts of blanket statements:
They are way too specific. They don't allow for the basic issue that there is often a very grey area that should be addressed. For instance, all of these people have something very much in common - and that under very simple circumstances, someone could easily see the correctness in the other's preferred choice.
Here, allow me to edit the previous list for correctness to demonstrate:
Hamburger or Cheeseburger ?
EAT THE BURGER YOU LUCKY PRICK
Eat pizza with your hands or Eat pizza with a knife and fork?
EAT THE PIZZA YOU LUCKY PRICK
Drink tea or drink coffee?
DRINK THE HOT LIQUID YOU LUCKY PRICK
Like Pepsi or like Coke
DRINK THE SUGAR FLUID YOU LUCKY PRICK
Like Mac or like PC
PC people
Like Beer or like liquor
GIVE IT ALL TO ME FIRST AND THEN DRINK WHAT I CAN'T PHYSICALLY CONSUME YOU LUCKY PRICK
There is also something else I think you should know about people who say these things:
They don't understand the world they live in. With so many things there are grey areas. These previous statements are FULL of them!
I know you know I am right. And I appreciate that. But when you really look at how these sayings break down - they are exclusive and they don't really adequately cover the ENTIRE spectrum of people.
Coke or Pepsi?
I like Coke for mixed drinks and Pepsi when I need a kick. Truth be told, I really don't like either.
Hamburger or Cheeseburger?
Depends on the toppings. With lots of toppings the cheese kind of gets lost and doesn't work as well.
Tea or Coffee?
Depends on how awake I am. I usually drink tea but I love a good coffee.
Pizza with your hands or a knife and fork?
Ever have legit deep dish pizza? Eating with your hands is a mistake. Or when you get 70 toppings and the structural support applied by the crust isn't adequate for vertical displacement.
Mac people or PC people?
While I am not a Mac fan, I do own an iPod. Depends on what you need from your platform.
Beer or liquor?
Hahaha. Both. Everyone is both with the right selection. Don't be a child.
So who, I can hear you ask yourself, who really knows what types of people there are in this world?
Me.
It's me. I know.
So before I drop this mental nuclear warhead upon you - let me preface with this: there are many types of these people, but their fundamental "self" of each is consistent.
The two types of people in this world are......
People who text "haha" and
people who text "lol"**
**(Of course, lol meaning Laugh Out Loud)
Look at yourself. You know immediately which one you are. You don't cross lines - if you do it is usually out of some ironic attempt to make fun of the other one.
So which are you?
Go on. Be honest.
I took a long look at myself and now have a goal system in place to get where I want to be.
PART 1: THE HAHAPS
Let us start with the "haha" people.
We need to examine this creature.
The general belief of most "haha people" - let us call them the HAHAPS - is the feeling that typing "lol" is a childish act.
I can hear their noses raise in the air a little bit when confronted by a "lol person" and they are forced to deal with their simplistic and juvenile abbreviations.
Not today, thank you very much.
There are many, MANY branches off the HAHAP tree. The most common I feel would be the hahaP, (the sub-group in which I have unfortunately have found myself)
These people not only feel, (yet often deny) a moral superiority in their HAHAP-ness that transcends into the message itself - they still do fall under the umbrella of the HAHAP - but they want you to know they are being sarcastic and superior. It is this "thing" they attach to the end of a message to make whatever screwed up and most likely sarcastic thing seem less horrible than it probably was.
Example:
You can almost feel the sarcasm dripping from the hahaP.
So is there any more variance within the HAHAP camp?
Yes there are.
Now this gets a little complicated. First of all, not all HAHAPS are completely smug about it - but they still think the "lol people" are a bit, well, silly.
"Why would I say "lol"? That isn't what a laugh sounds like. I say "haha" so why type "lol"?
...or something similar. However, they are a branch of the same tree - they are morally above the "lol people".
So how to identify the next branch of HAHAP?
They are the ones that honestly mean the HAHAP nature of their text.
But how do we tell them apart? How can you differentiate between a hahaP and one which is more honest?
The addition of this one symbol, and all of a sudden the hahaP turns into a haha!P or even a possible HAHA!P.
Some people fee if they are happy enough for an exclamation point, they are happy enough for all caps.
It is simply amazing what sort of difference this one little exclamation point can make.
Let me demonstrate:
Person 1: Knock Knock.
Person 2: Who's there?
Person 1: Daisy.
Person 2: Daisy who?
Person 1: DAISY ME ROLLIN', THEY HATIN'
Person 2: haha
WOW. TALK ABOUT A TOTAL DISREGARD FOR PERSON 1'S FEELINGS! That implies Person 2 not only didn't find that amazing joke funny, but they want you to know they also hate you. The person sending the joke will go away feeling rejected and unappreciated. The HAHAPSer will set their phone down and forget the whole thing happened.
Let us assume Person 1 has another friend and they decide to try another joke to get that validation...
Person 1: Knock Knock
Person 2:Who's there?
Person 1: Cash.
Person 2: Cash who?
Person 1: No thanks, I don't like cashews. I would rather have a peanut.
Person 2: haha!
See the difference? That one little ! made all the difference! The sender gets validation their joke was good, and the person sending it sounds as if they appreciated the joke. Everyone wins in this scenario! Essentially, the few milliseconds it takes to add a ! to the end of your "haha" changes everything about how it is received.
Look at this example - he HAHAPed but clearly he did not react publicly to the previous statement:
There is a third class of HAHAPS also.
This one is one step away from being a LOLP. They are walking the line where it begins to blur. However, at the core, they still believe their HAHAP-ness is a superior form - though I think it is more for the person's benefit on the receiving end of the response.
These are the HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!P.
A haha is too sarcastic
A haha! is okay, but it doesn't adequately advertise their specific joy.
Even the delightful HAHA!P
These people want you to know, in no uncertain terms, how amazingly fucking joyful they are to be there, at that moment, responding to you.
There is nothing wrong with this unless applied too liberally, but if you get this in response you know you have an energetic HAHAPSer on the other end of the line who is just so happy to be there.
An example:
See? Even though they didn't get the joke, they wanted the other person to really know just how damn happy they were to be a part of all this hilarity.
Now, you can sometimes find a HAHAHAHAHAPS!er that doesn't use an exclamation point, but their responses seem to fall into just a hahaP response of the original form of "haha". It loses something and sort of erodes back into the base form. It is almost as if they are trying too hard to mean it, but clearly don't.
There is also the variant you may find, an occasional BAHAHAPSer, for instance.
The "bahahaha"ers do think what you say is funny - the B at the beginning lets the receiver know that what they said was funny enough for a haha! but they also want you to know that it was not something that made them bubble over with excitement.
When someone goes "bahahaha!" in real life it is a surprise and unforced laugh, and this would be the equivalent. Not a huge laugh, not a sarcastic laugh, but an honest laugh.
It is a good mix. Since most of us are BAHAPS people - I just don't think we know it. We often do think what we got in that text was funny. We want the other person to know we thought it was funny, but the message was not funny enough for a HAHA!P response and certainly not a HAHAHAHAHAHAPS! response.
It is a good, solid response that leaves everyone happy. Try it out, you may like it.
Now...the other side of the oh-so-defined line:
PART 2: THE LOLPS
Okay, so we have covered one half of my stellar argument.
It is time to wander into the veritable Toon Town that is the land of the "lol people" - who we will call LOLPS as a group.
The LOLP is a more interesting creature than first glance would assume.
We will cover the majority of the LOLP population, and then discuss some of the branches the LOLP has taken in its evolution.
The main body of the LOLP population are essentially bouncy pre- teen and actual-teen teenagers - and terrifyingly enough - and young twenty-somethings. These people grew up in a text generation that had already gotten out of infancy and was finding itself in the world.
Unlike the HAHAPS who seem to remember a time before "LOL" even existed - and still cling to that shard of humanity they may never get back - the LOLP doesn't recognize a world where people didn't Laugh Out Loud to everything.
Everything.
They don't see "LOL" as anything ridiculous - it was there before they got there so it already existed as a part of the texting lexicon. They use "LOL" as a funny reponse that covers all bases - it is a way they express their lack of responsibility and how the world is such a goofy place. When you are a kid and don't have many things of your own to really look after, it is a "LOL" kind of world, ya know?
Oh, Tami broke up with Joshua and he was already dating Tina?
And while this major group is slowly aging and getting into and out of college, I feel the LOLP will never be a breed. New LOLPers arrive every second, but that doesn't not make one a LOLP for life, it seems to be something of a phase for most people.
But texting LOL seems to be a way to just demonstrate how fancy and free you are.
One interesting fact: the addition of a ! to the end of a LOL does not affect its degree of LOLP.
However, when you get a bit older and you have a sick kid at home and your job is tearing you to pieces and your personal life hasn't existed in a decade - maybe your parents live in your guest room and your spouse is sleeping with their boss...you're probably not a LOLP anymore. Those days are over.
So the LOLP can take several forms, much as the HAHAP. The first I want to discuss is the lolP.
These people use the lol as place holders - lol's for the sake of lol's. A more focused lolP will use lol's that simply imply that what they or you are saying is funny, but they don't care enough to make a valid attempt at writing it this way.
It has a darker side as well, where it can be thrown in just so people know you are serious...but you don't want to appear to be.
The essential lolP and LOLP also really loves emojii's, the little smileys - but is a specific breed we call LOLP+e. They will often try to put several of these adorable emojii's together in funny scenes in order to try to get the other person to LOLP as well, and perhaps even respond with a LOLP+e of their own. They are a branch all their own, because their LOLP+e is an attempt to get the other person to respond in kind.
Now, something interesting has happened in the LOLP camp. It seems that there is a timeline of texting that goes a little something like this:
0 - 15 years old
Start with LOLP and slowly begin experimentation with alternate LOLP sub-groups like the lolP and LOLP+e
15 - 20 years old
Slowly start to fade from LOLP into lolP. LOLP+e is not very common. HAHAP and HAHA!P tendencies begin to surface.
20 - 30 years old
LOLP is completely gone. lolP on occasion as a throwback to a happier time. They now are almost exclusively HAHAP people with a few advanced members becoming the beloved BAHAHAP
30 - 45 years old
Almost exclusively hahaP with the occasional HAHAP or even the now more rare HAHA!P.
45 + years old
This is where things get interesting...
The 45+ crowd grew up in a time before texting was really "a thing". They essentially avoided it at first since most of their communication was the old way - voice calls, snail mail, etc. They gave into email eventually, sure, but still kind of resisted texting as it was impersonal.
The problem arose when their kids grew up in an exclusively text era. Their kids didn't know how or why anyone would communicate consistently with voice calls, so they had to learn how to text to better be in touch with their children.
This is noble to be sure, but a closer look reveals the interesting twist:
The people that taught the 45+ crowd to text?
They were the LOLPers.
So the cycle nearly ends itself where it started, with one caveat:
Text-speak is like a different language. So when the 45+ crowd tries to be the lolP or LOLP their kid tried to teach them to be, you get a misuse of the word and concept in general.
They do not evolve into subgroups, but use it as a standard communication candle, rarely varying the lol to anything other than a LOL if they happen to figure out the caps lock on their phone.
For example:
I personally used to get annoyed when my mother would demonstrate her LOLPness. My sister taught her to text, and use to be one of my life's big regrets.
However, I love my mother so I don't get worked up about it. I reach across from my HAHAP section of the world into the LOLP aisle and gladly take her hand on the way to wherever the conversation may be going.
Not for my friend Steve though.
Fuck him.
Stupid LOLP.
Where it gets even more interesting is when you look at the timeline and see it as a fluid creature, with people morphing into one region from another depending on their life at the time. One other factor is the 45+ years old group is shrinking. As all of the other age ranges get older, they won't need the young LOLP to teach them how because they, too, grew up in the era of text. Will that void be full of HAHAP with its varied sub-groups like the sarcastic hahaP or the over-enthusiastic HAHAHA!P? Or will the new older generation switch to LOLP as a way to seem cool and to stay "in touch" with their kids?
It is all very exciting to watch it unfold.
That is essentially my theory on the two types of people in this world. Yes, there is a variance within each group, and people may actually change sides, but in today's text-to-live world, you are one of the other.
Let us see the culmination of all of this analysis and see what happens when a LOLP and a HAHAP interact:
Do you see?
Hopefully this very necessary lesson has opened your eyes to perhaps your own analysis at least.
And yes, I have entirely too much time to think about this stuff.
Thank you all SO much for reading! This is the part of the blog where I ask you to go on and visit my YouTube page to see the fun I have been making over there. I know it doesn't seem like much, but every view, like, and comment means a lot!
Here is my latest video!
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