I will readily admit to judging people I meet online by the way they communicate. If I meet someone online and they say “omg, so many ppl r cuming 2 my prty 2nite lol!!!111 wat do u want 2 bring??? lmao,” I will try to steer clear of them, as the netspeak irritates me beyond belief. It makes me physically cringe when it’s really bad. It’s different if it’s someone I know in real life, because I talk to them away from a computer. I have things besides words on a screen on which to base my opinion of them.

Why do people do it? Do they think it’s cool? I have no idea. When I see netspeak I get the impression of a twelve-year-old girl with nothing intelligent to say, ever. I don’t understand why people would give that impression to others. I’m not so much knocking the people who use it with their friends as the people who post long intros to communities in it, and then get defensive when members ask them to please stop, as it hurts their eyes. I guess everyone has a right to talk however they want, but I don’t know why they’d want to express their right like that.

What makes it worse is that phrases like lol are so overused that they’ve lost their meaning. I used to say lol from time to time, but it became so ubiquitous that I got fed up and stopped. People use it after things that are barely amusing. For instance, “did I leave my CDs at your house? lol” I hate it.

To any netspeak users out there- I’m honestly interested in why you choose to type like that. Argue with me.