Is it just me or has the emoticon monstered out of control? Don’t get me wrong, I use them – for who wants a heartfelt birthday text message without a balloon, party hat, beribboned gift box and cake emoji?

what need have I for mere words?

I’m just noticing a rise in opinion text messages, Facebook conversations and emails that seem to followed by a passive aggressive addendum  

It’s the old “Ok, don’t take offence but…” which signals that despite the preface, I should very much take offence to what you are saying, for if it was not intended to offend, I wouldn’t require the preparation.

Similarly the use of LOL appears to have taken a dark turn. Once upon a time, when we’d established it no longer meant ‘lots of love’  and had finally managed to stop our aged relatives using it to sign off sad missives about dead pets, we were blithely peppering our text messages and emails with this declaration of mirth. LOL on every second line just indicated we found everyone funny. Seriously, raucously funny. So damn funny, we were LAUGHING OUT LOUD.

STOP IT You’re killing me!

How we got anything done amongst this cacophony of endlessly professed laughter is truly astonishing and is probably part of some observant Alien’s Phd as we speak.

I didn’t LOL. I might have made that ‘Huh’ noise and I know I’ve snorted…do other people snort out loud?

*SnOL.

Yes, I like it. Although I’m concerned the accompanying SnOL emoji may just look like someone with hay fever and no hanky.

And then when we imagined it couldn’t get any funnier, it did, because suddenly people were ROFL. These folk are to be admired; it is extremely difficult to text and roll at the same time (unless you’re Pat Mullins* [vale] In which case you’re also dealing with gum nuts up your nose).

I have wondered if LOL might just have been a way to cover up an inadequate response ; as in,

You say it best, when you say nothing at all. LOL ?

But now I realise it’s also the thing you hastily type to cover the fact you may have been just the weeniest bit offensive.

I am totes laughing out loud, we’re good right?

I am guilty, in the last week or so of employing the IMHO acronym. I will confess that my use of this is completely disingenuous , for my opinion is rarely humble. ‘In my humble opinion’ just sounds like some throwback to a Regency era novel, where a lady’s ‘opinion’ was, unless she was commenting on petit point or bonnet trimming, that of her husband or father.

Now I’m just a mouthy feminist banging on about all manner of darkly subversive subjects just to shit the patriarchy. Hell in a bloody hand basket.

Mouthy AND grumpy because, once again, FACEBOOK.

A gremlin on FB keeps asking me if I want to download STICKERS with which to further annoy people on messenger. These are seriously weird. Big ass faces with expressions that do not correspond to any emotion I, or anyone I know, have ever experienced. There’s also Pusheen, the obese cat and Bun, the…what the hell is Bun? And cacti. Lots of cacti imbued with human qualities.

It’s like falling down some hallucinogenic Hello Kitty rabbit hole. This, in turn, gives me flashbacks to the time when I was dealing with the porny anime comic books my friend, Charles, would thoughtfully send over from Japan. My then six and nine year old’s couldn’t work out why they weren’t allowed to read them.

so much fantasy wrongness for western delight you love

Oh well, watchagonnado…YOLO, emirate?

• *Obvs from Chris Lilley’s “We Can Be Heroes” – still IMHO, his best work to date.