Hahaha vs. Hehehe
May 1, 2015 3:40 PM   Subscribe

The New Yorker investigates the differences between "e-laughter" in its latest cultural commentary.

"The terms of e-laughter—“ha ha,” “ho ho,” “hee hee,” “heh”—are implicitly understood by just about everybody. But, in recent years, there’s been an increasingly popular newcomer: “hehe.” Not surprisingly, it’s being foisted upon us by youth. What does it mean?"
posted by ourt (108 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
Heh
posted by Falling_Saint at 3:46 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


Am I weird for thinking 'hehe' was the norm? I've been chatting online since the mid 90s and the idea that 'hehe' is somehow new seems bizarre to me. "haha" was always the 'this is really unexpectedly funny and I'm reacting strongly" laugh, while "hehe" was more of an "I'm chuckling".
posted by Space Coyote at 3:47 PM on May 1, 2015 [39 favorites]


eheheheh
posted by frijole at 3:49 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


The one I see most is "jajajajaja", from Spanish speakers. Or even "jijiji". I don't really see the others much.
posted by Fnarf at 3:50 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm with Space Coyote -- I've been using hehe since the days of BBSes, Pine and IRC. Strange to see it identified with 'these kids today'.
posted by turbowombat at 3:50 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


lol
posted by billiebee at 3:50 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yeah, on irc with French colleagues it was often 'hihi'.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:52 PM on May 1, 2015


“Heh” is for a sort of satisfyingly good point, a nice moment shared, with a possible hint of down-home vulgarity.

Spot-on: heh has a shady quality about it. A bit illicit.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:53 PM on May 1, 2015 [13 favorites]


also, thank you to Page 1 of Sarah Larson's oeuvre at the New Yorker for reminding me once again why I was happy to leave that particular city.
posted by turbowombat at 3:53 PM on May 1, 2015


Ayy Lmao
posted by hellojed at 3:58 PM on May 1, 2015 [19 favorites]


Meh.
posted by chavenet at 4:02 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Lolé!
posted by wemayfreeze at 4:04 PM on May 1, 2015


Spot-on: heh has a shady quality about it. A bit illicit.

Still, a step up from muahaha, which may indicate that you are a villain of some kind.
posted by weston at 4:05 PM on May 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


ghegheghegheghegheghegheghe
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 4:06 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


LOL. The New Yorker about anything. Heh.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:07 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, let's not forget "hi" predates the inter tubes. It's an old radio ops way of sending a laugh.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:08 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


giggitygiggity.
posted by symbioid at 4:09 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Only tangentially related: If you are among the segment of the population who has taken to saying the "lol" aloud (pronounced as a single word, not an initialism) as an ironic humor acknowledgement, or if you are associated with any folks who do, it may amuse you to go back and watch the Star Trek TNG episode The Offspring.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 4:10 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


The one that I don't understand is kakakakaka. (I think it's used by Spanish and/or Portuguese speakers.)
posted by ocherdraco at 4:10 PM on May 1, 2015


Meh.
posted by Fizz at 4:13 PM on May 1, 2015


When I first encountered "hehe" back in the 90s it struck me as perverse and cretinous, the deranged giggle of some ill-bred crepuscular predator. I assumed it was how people who couldn't be bothered to spell typed "heh heh." My opinion has not changed since.
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:20 PM on May 1, 2015 [25 favorites]


Italian: ihihihih and occasionally ahahah

If you’re saying “tee hee,” you’re in love, beautifully giddy, or up to no good.
Guilty.

You might need to take it down a notch.
Never, madam. I believe the kids refer to this particular brand of hateraide as "jelly."
posted by romakimmy at 4:23 PM on May 1, 2015


What, no bwahahahaha?
posted by jim in austin at 4:27 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


jim, I always prefered bwahahaha to muahahaha, but the tide of popular evil opinion turned against us.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:29 PM on May 1, 2015 [9 favorites]


A friend of mine has lately converted me to "bahaha" (tack on more has as appropriate) for when things get really funny. Also, adding aaas onto the end of ha, for more than just perfunctory "I recognize your humorous contribution" laughter.
posted by deludingmyself at 4:33 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


In the mid-to-late nineties, I would often mention how I had come up with "hehe" independently of seeing it elsewhere, a claim my friends interpreted as me saying that I "invented" hehe. I didn't, obviously, but if Sarah Larson is only seeing it recently she and I are on very different parts of the internet.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:37 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm a kyahahahahaha kind of girl, but laughter in all its forms are awesome.
posted by Deoridhe at 4:42 PM on May 1, 2015


As clvrmnky says, "hi hi" has existed since the early days of amateur radio, as a way of laughing in Morse code. The sound of those characters, when sent quickly, is reminiscent of laughter. The odd thing is that it eventually started being used by voice operators too. It is common to hear a ham operator say "hi" or "hi hi" after saying something that was meant jokingly.
posted by jkent at 4:44 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


"hehe" was the officially sanctioned method of conveying laughter in my Air Warrior squadron on Compuserve. In the 80s.

/raises a glass in memory of VFA-15, the Shadow Riders
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:47 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


Or there's hHhHhHhH, where you're laughing so hard you miss the “a” key and hit caps lock instead.
posted by acb at 4:51 PM on May 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


I have not laughed in 37 years.
posted by mittens at 5:01 PM on May 1, 2015 [29 favorites]


Does anybody remember laughter?
posted by plastic_animals at 5:03 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


*laughs softly in the dark*
posted by zennie at 5:05 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


(This thread is a bit confusing for someone who speaks Swedish. From a quick peek in SAOB, "haha" for laughter has an example from 1614, "hihi" from 1690, "hehe" from 1890, "hoho" from 1893, etc. I'm pretty sure those entries predate the Internet.)

(And yeah, you'll find "jaja" too, with examples from 1556 and onwards, but that means something else...)
posted by effbot at 5:06 PM on May 1, 2015


ᄏᄏ
posted by stebulus at 5:09 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


kekekekeke zerg rush lol
posted by overeducated_alligator at 5:09 PM on May 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


I have also seen “kekekeke”, though think that may be transliterated from an East Asian language (Chinese/Korean/Malay?)
posted by acb at 5:10 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


My actual laugh sounds more like h↓ʌ̃↓ h↓ʌ̃↓ I think (possibly inaccurate IPA?) Hard to type on a phone for sure.
posted by en forme de poire at 5:12 PM on May 1, 2015


I have also seen “kekekeke”, though think that may be transliterated from an East Asian language (Chinese/Korean/Malay?)

ahem
posted by stebulus at 5:14 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have not laughed in 37 years.

heeheehee
posted by Rangi at 5:14 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


gu-FAW!
posted by jonmc at 5:16 PM on May 1, 2015



posted by charlie don't surf at 5:18 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


huehuehue?
posted by dis_integration at 5:37 PM on May 1, 2015 [6 favorites]


The one I have a lot of trouble reading charitably is "haha" at the end of one's own message to...release tension? Years back when I was doing online dating I remember it coming not infrequently from people at least a few years younger than I was. And it wasn't after anything particularly jokey; it felt maybe like a "just in case you think what I just wrote was embarrassing I'll go ahead and laugh at myself first." Is this a known phenomenon, or was I misreading?
posted by nobody at 5:38 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


HOHOHO HEEHEEHEE HAHAHA
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:49 PM on May 1, 2015 [7 favorites]


What? No. We have always "hehe"d in the castle.

Here is the (my, idiosyncratic) hierarchy:

"Heh": more of a smirk than a genuine laugh. This one makes me self-conscious when people do it too often.

"Hehe": milder laughter. Something is funny, or amusing, but you're not at honking-like-a-goose levels of hilarious. Add additional "he"s as needed to indicate greater potency.

"Haha": stronger laughter. Use when something is legitimately making you laugh out loud. Add additional "ha"s as needed to indicate greater potency.

"Hahaha": goosehonking hilarity.

"Ha ha": You are Nelson.

"Heehee" or "hee": sort of a girlier laugh. I use this a lot, usually in the context of things that are cute more than falling-down funny.

"Hee ho": You are a nerd and I am going to catch you and put you in a tiny bottle.

"Kek": You are bad and you should feel bad. Get out of my office this instant.








You're welcome.
posted by byanyothername at 5:50 PM on May 1, 2015 [7 favorites]


No, that's about right. (haha suffix)

Hehe has of late been, to me, a sympathetic and obligation-free chuckle from others. Such as when I've theoretically announced that I've deleted half the filesystem on a server due to an erroneous white space between a slash and an asterisk. Then followed up with a "so, yeah, I fixed that quickly from backup, but geez."

Also, gratuitous Napoleon XIV reference here...
posted by Jubal Kessler at 5:52 PM on May 1, 2015


HOHOHO HEEHEEHEE HAHAHA
posted by cazoo at 5:57 PM on May 1, 2015


RDRR
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:58 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


I always prefered bwahahaha to muahahaha

Here too, a subtle but crucial distinction. Bwahaha is a laugh of ridicule, muahaha a laugh of evil scheming.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:58 PM on May 1, 2015 [10 favorites]


No love for the enigmatic "chortle"?
posted by dr_dank at 5:59 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


The Japanese have managed to condense it down to a single Latin letter: w, from "warau" (笑う) or "warai" (笑い). And the number of w's you use conveys how much laughter you are emitting. Pretty clever, but it causes problems sometimes. Case in point: Nico Nico Douga, aka the Japanese YouTube aka the Worst Video Hosting Site on the Planet. They display the video's comments horizontally scrolling across the video itself, so you get to a pretty funny bit and suddenly the screen is covered with wwwwwwwwwwwww
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:59 PM on May 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


Uh huh huh huh. Yeh m heh heh.
posted by infinitewindow at 6:02 PM on May 1, 2015


LOLHAHAHAOMGWTFBBQ
posted by sharpener at 6:10 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Har-de-har-harrrr
posted by briank at 6:12 PM on May 1, 2015


Obligatory clip of Cap'n Hook laughing.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 6:18 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


*snort*
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:26 PM on May 1, 2015


giggitygiggity

My in-person friends have started doing this, and I really want them to stop. I've worked hard to expunge all traces of Family Guy out of my life, and resent the intrusion. At this point I'd prefer Cartmanisms.
posted by JHarris at 6:31 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


Nyuknyuknyuk
posted by Kabanos at 6:39 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I haaaaaaaate "hehe". It's like "You have said something, and I know I have to acknowledge that, but I have literally nothing to say in response." I used to have an online friend who after awhile only said hehe to every single thing I said. It made me feel bad about myself.
posted by bleep at 6:39 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]



*slaps thighs*
posted by oceanjesse at 6:56 PM on May 1, 2015


I have not laughed in 37 years.

Wow! You must really want to keep your ass on.
posted by srboisvert at 7:07 PM on May 1, 2015 [10 favorites]


Arabic speakers online often write "hhhhhhhhhhhh" which I like very much.
posted by Corduroy at 7:21 PM on May 1, 2015


I have enough reason to reference the funnyometer that I saved a copy of it.
posted by cardioid at 7:23 PM on May 1, 2015


For me, "Heh" has mostly meant "your joke was alright, but I am being respectful in giving a slight laugh."

Tehe might be more of a "I'm feeling goofy and playful, and you're a good kind of funny."

Hehe is in *NO* way new, at least by my view. I use it all the time, and I tend to avoid using Haha. I call Hehe, a standard response for ages, not something brand-new.
posted by Grease at 7:26 PM on May 1, 2015




I didn't know cortex was doing voice work for cartoons.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2015


it's funny every time
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2015


I did not realize I had a specific internet chortle until my children started imitating it, the sound I make when I'm reading something to myself and it makes me literally LOL. When they're pretending to read things on the internet, they mimic my internet chortle. It's very disconcerting.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


heh - mildly amusing
heh. - mildly condescending
hahaha - disingenuous laughter
teehee - trollish laughter
heehee - conspiratorial laughter
lol - actual laughter
LOL - actually audible laughter
bwhaha - evil laughter
haha! - they're going to take me away.

... and now someone can make a convincing me-bot.
posted by pan at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


kek
posted by keli at 8:27 PM on May 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


"Hehe" was the go-to back in the 90s and is so incredibly not new, that I finally understand my mom's frustration when I was 13 and thought the Delia's catalog invented bell bottoms. Like bleep above, "hehe" has been overused to the point of making me feel like I've bored someone when they say it. I tend to use "haha" with more "ha"s for emphasis, and then sometimes a random smattering of additional random letters if it's super funny. Also "lol" but only in certain situations, and then of course "lolololol" when I'm loling actually out loud. Some friends and I have also taken to saying "muttley laughing!" when it's about something way funny, and kinda mean.
posted by masquesoporfavor at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2015


I can't even think about "huehuehue" without breaking out into laughter and seeing the laughing duck gif in my mind's eye.

But it tends to be used sarcastically in general usage.

KEK
posted by Windopaene at 8:50 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also "lol" but only in certain situations, and then of course "lolololol" when I'm loling actually out loud.

I'm so old, I remember when lol always meant that you were literally laughing out loud, and it was only typed in response to a funny thing someone else wrote. These were the joyous days before lol became a sort of punctuation mark, indicating that the author intends the preceding sentence to be read in a humorous light.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]




Hahaha hehehe
posted by h00py at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2015


I usually use a "ha", "heh", or "haha". The first two are basically a smiley or a winking smiley, the latter is an actual laugh. I never got into using "lol" or emoticons, just for arbitrary reasons that probably at the time convinced me I was above the unwashed masses, so it's "haha" instead. If you get me to say "ahaha", with the "a" first, know that you have said something truly hilarious and awesome. If it's "ahahahaha", I probably had to remember how to breathe. If I say "bahaha", it is usually for the same reason, except the thing that is funny is probably really harsh and at someone's expense. "Hehe" was the polite, in-group giggle of my early chatroom career, when I also "huggled" people and was generally overly cute and silly online because I was despairing and miserable offline. Almost certainly for different reasons, one of my very good friends uses "hehe" frequently and never disingenuously, unlike my "haha" which might be appended to a potentially awkward statement to take the sting out of it. I don't use "hoho" or variants because I am not a murderer.

The thing that is really fascinating to me about all this is that I am confident that I have never used "heh" for a real gut laugh or "ahahaha" when I'm humoring someone. There's a taxonomy here that is genuinely important to me and that I would feel uncomfortable violating. It's part of my personal syntax, the one that I think we all learn about our good friends or frequent contacts in this cycle of textual communication. I know how my friend is feeling just by where, when, and how he inserts a laugh, and I'm pretty sure he could do the same with me. And now that I'm thinking about it, I think I don't trust people who are inconsistent about things like this or who don't display these idiosyncrasies, because it signals to me that they're not really communicating in good faith. I can't "read" them, which makes me wary. It feels like talking to someone who's putting on a face or hiding their motives. So that's something else I'm going to have to bring up with my therapist. I'll just add it to the list.
posted by Errant at 9:45 PM on May 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


I will use heh in my own online writing, often in parentheses, to acknowledge an inadvertent pun or bawdy innuendo that I don't want to bother exising. It's shorthand for "see what I did there?" I guess. Is that usual usage?
posted by carmicha at 9:47 PM on May 1, 2015




哈哈哈
posted by btfreek at 11:07 PM on May 1, 2015


Just for those not in on it, if I recall, kek comes from the early days of world of warcraft when the two sides - alliance and horde had their chat rendered mutually unintelligible by using the letters in the words typed as a seed to generate nonsense syllables. Typing 'lol' as a horde player resulted in alliance players seeing 'kek'. It kind of spread from there like some sort of... thing.
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:09 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


I was introduced to "heh" by someone who used it entirely naturally, had probably never seen it written, and probably wasn't even aware she was doing it. It was in the mid-nineties and I was at a play with a semi-romantic friend. It was some genuinely humorous thing that I've now utterly forgotten, and my friend and I prided ourselves on being smart and fast, certainly more so than any given random collection of white-haired theater subscribers. So it moved quickly from surprising to humbling to surreal when, partway through this highbrow show that was genuinely a laugh a minute, I realized that about 500 milliseconds before I got the joke, and maybe 200 milliseconds before I even consciously heard it, there would be this mild, momentary "heh" from somewhere in front of us. Eventually I pinpointed it to (as I perceived it then) just another white-haired woman in her 70s, who apparently had a brain an order of magnitude faster than either of us smartass teenagers. She was never terribly amused, just mildly so, getting the joke, appreciating it, and moving on with things. At first it drove me crazy, initially for the obvious reasons, but then because I realized that occasionally I would be missing something (it was a clever play) and I'd have to rev double-hard to figure out what that "heh" had been about. But oddly, the annoyance quickly dissipated, and I left the show with a greater respect for that random woman's intellect than almost anyone I've met in 20 years since. I really wanted to go up to her afterwards and ask her...something...but I couldn't think what, and in any case I was already an expert in failures of courage towards intimidating women. But since that day, "heh" has held a certain magic aura for me -- despite that manifestly not being its common meaning anymore -- of some intellect vast, cool, yet generous, who gets it, feels it, and has moved on to the next thing before you've even quite finished hearing the words themselves.
posted by chortly at 11:12 PM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


People who emphasize their lols as looooooool must be destroyed.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:46 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


The one I have a lot of trouble reading charitably is "haha" at the end of one's own message to...release tension? ... And it wasn't after anything particularly jokey; it felt maybe like a "just in case you think what I just wrote was embarrassing I'll go ahead and laugh at myself first." Is this a known phenomenon, or was I misreading?

I think you've almost got it, though I think it's more an acknowledgment of awkwardness. They just created some tension and are asking it not to be taken too seriously. It could be on the other person, like, "No need to be a jerk haha."
posted by nom de poop at 2:01 AM on May 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


mikurski hilarity: regex edition

snr+k
he+
hah!
ha+
posted by mikurski at 2:12 AM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]




ㅎ ㅎ
posted by needled at 3:53 AM on May 2, 2015


😃😃😃💩
posted by egypturnash at 5:04 AM on May 2, 2015


My granddaughter uses ~GiGGle~.
posted by notreally at 6:17 AM on May 2, 2015


People who emphasize their lols as looooooool must be destroyed.

Strongly disagree. Multiple o's to me conveys howls of laughter; the o a visual cue of an open mouth. Turns English into an almost pictogramic language, and I'm hard pressed to think of other examples of English used this way.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:33 AM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


People who emphasize their lols as looooooool must be destroyed.

Strongly disagree. Multiple o's to me conveys howls of laughter; the o a visual cue of an open mouth.


Though, given the pronunciation rules of English, “looooool” would be a laugh breaking down into a primal, wolf-like howl, which is just weird. Unless you take a leaf out of the New Yorker and render it as “loöööööööööl”, though then it would, instead, look weird.
posted by acb at 6:40 AM on May 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


Pronunciation rules don't apply though, if you take the o as a visual cue of an open mouth. You don't read a drawing of a pumpkin; you look at it.

OK maybe some people read pumpkins. I shouldn't presume.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:17 AM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


My irssi (irc) config has these utf-8/emoji autocompletes:
  "/!\\" = { value = "⚠"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":(" = { value = "☹"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":((" = { value = "😢"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":)" = { value = "☺"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":))" = { value = "😊"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":)))" = { value = "😊"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":/" = { value = "😏"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":<" = { value = "😞"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":<<<" = { value = "😠"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":<<<" = { value = "😠"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":D" = { value = "😃"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":DD" = { value = "😆"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":DDD" = { value = "😁"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":DDDD" = { value = "😂"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":O" = { value = "😲"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":OO" = { value = "😰"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":OOO" = { value = "😱"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":P" = { value = "😝"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":\\" = { value = "😏"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":|" = { value = "😐"; auto = "yes"; };
  ":||" = { value = "😒"; auto = "yes"; };
  ";)" = { value = "😉"; auto = "yes"; };
  ";P" = { value = "😜"; auto = "yes"; };
  "D:" = { value = "😩"; auto = "yes"; };
  "DD:" = { value = "😨"; auto = "yes"; };
  "DDD:" = { value = "😭"; auto = "yes"; };
  "\\o/" = { value = "🙌"; auto = "yes"; };
  "o:)" = { value = "😇"; auto = "yes"; };
  business = { value = "beeswax"; auto = "yes"; };
  fax = { value = "℻"; auto = "yes"; };
Those last two are optional, but the rest are mandatory!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:38 AM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


I default to "haha" when someone texts me something funny. If it's very funny, maybe even a "hahahaha". Or if it's really hysterical, "omg, hahahaha" or the like.

But if someone texts me something funny and I reply with "haha", then they text me something funny again right after but it isn't funny enough to warrant a "hahahaha" response, to make it seem like I'm not replying with the same contentless reply each time and I'm actually paying attention to them and value the conversation with them, I reply with a "hehe" instead.
posted by Brian Puccio at 7:38 AM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also I still parse "lol" as this noise. Alas, no matches for "lol" on this ask from 2004, so I may be the only one.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:41 AM on May 2, 2015


I think of 'haha' as being from the Latin and hence a little more formal whereas 'hehe' is more Anglo Saxon and down to earth. In the Beano I seem to remember it was often 'teehee' which my schoolboy self was then astonished to find in Chaucer.
posted by Segundus at 8:23 AM on May 2, 2015


Thanks to this FPP I am right now reading on a Korean site the difference between ㅋㅋ and ㅎㅎ. And the different meanings conveyed by how many times you repeat ㅋ.

ㅠㅠ
posted by needled at 8:39 AM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Pan, I can agree on all of those, except for "teehee," and/or "tehe" being 'trollish,' no offense. I've just never seen it as trollish. If anything, "Lulz" is more trollish, by connotation. Since Kek was borne out of 4chan culture, I can say safely that that's a likely trollish connotation, as well.

I don't see the difference between "heh" and "Heh.," though. Jajajaja, I've been told by one Mexican, once, so I can confirm, there. Never've heard jijiji.
posted by Grease at 11:25 AM on May 2, 2015


 ROFL:ROFL:ROFL:ROFL
         _^___
 L    __/   [] \    
LOL===__        \ 
 L      \________]
         I   I
        --------/
posted by Mick at 11:37 AM on May 2, 2015 [6 favorites]


"HH" - but only if you're Batman.
posted by straight at 2:10 PM on May 2, 2015


multilingual SMS jokefests are awesome

hehe - works in most of Western Europe; laughing a little
hihi - French, "teeheehee"
haha - can be sarcastic/teasing
mouahaha/mwahaha - derp
lol - obvs, another one that's used in quite a few countries
mdr - mort(e) de rire, dying of laughter
hihi mdr lol - "I set you up for it and you fell right into the punch line ahahahahaaa"
hhhhhhhhhh - most of my Arabic-speaking friends when laughing uncontrollably, it's pretty great for expressing variable-length wild giggle laughter rather than the slightly more complex "hehehehehehe" which implicates that one's reasoning has not entirely been overcome, whereas "hhhhhhhhhhh" is like, brainpower all spent laughing.
posted by fraula at 2:23 PM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Unless you take a leaf out of the New Yorker and render it as “loöööööööööl”, though then it would, instead, look weird.

Also, people might confuse it for the Swedish compound word meaning "lynx island island island island island island island island beer".
posted by martinrebas at 3:58 PM on May 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


What!? My first e-laughter was "hehe", and I still prefer it. The New Yorker has been overrated since the 80's by those who are a little too precious about the written word... hehe
posted by smidgen at 4:04 PM on May 2, 2015


"lynx island island island island island island island island beer"

Doesn't one of the microbreweries on Åland make this?
posted by acb at 6:08 PM on May 2, 2015


“looooool” would be a laugh breaking down into a primal, wolf-like howl

looooool
werewolves of London
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:22 PM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


I used to ROFL. Now I lol. "Lolwut" is one of my favorite responses to the bizarre.

My 24 year old stepson uses "haha" as a sort of "j/k, don't be mad at me." He'll say something borderline offensive on facebook, but tack on a "haha" so you know he didn't really mean it, guys.

And I thought kek was a chanism based on a Turkish snack cake. "Lel" is a chan thing too, I think.
posted by Biblio at 11:38 PM on May 2, 2015


And I thought kek was a chanism based on a Turkish snack cake. "Lel" is a chan thing too, I think.

IIRC, kek originated from the kekeke or Starcraft. Some time later, the TOP GUN hat took off. By some wonderful convergence of fate, someone discovered there's a Turkish snack called Topkek.

The rest, as they say, is history.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:59 PM on May 3, 2015


In Chinese there's 'hehe' and 'haha' too, but 'hehe' is pronounced more like 'her-her' instead of 'heehee', and is sort of a more low-key way to do 'haha', or to just to make sure that your reader knows that you are saying something amiably .
posted by em at 7:19 PM on May 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


I often write "hee," to convey mild amusement of a type slightly more appreciative than "heh."
posted by salix at 6:53 PM on May 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


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