Fidel Gastro’s

To laugh. It’s what separates us from the animals. Except the monkeys. And dogs. And rats. Oh those rascally rats - squeaking away every Thursday watching re-runs of season 4 Friends.

“So then I said - ‘why the long face!’”

If I were a rat for a day how would I know how to laugh at my fellow plague bearer’s jokes? Would it be a ‘eeekeeek’, a ’squeeky-ekey-ekey’ or just an ‘ekekeke’? A difficult social situation for all of us. In a similar fashion, human migration to the web means we also have these issues when laughing over the internet.

You are having a cheeky IM session and someone busts the classic:

‘Did you hear about the Hollywood actress who got stabbed, Reese something
‘Witherspoon?’
‘No with a knife’

Wham - you are beside yourself with laughter. But how to react to his? How do you type your laugh? With a ‘heh?’, a ‘heehee’ or a ‘haha’? You are probably worried about sounding patronising, mildly confused or just plain mental and this is why you are here. A guide to better laughing through internet…

The basics.

heh. Light smirk, half-empty and apathetic. A joke you don’t find funny but you feel obliged to laugh. Your dad makes a crack in front of the family about indian lesbians and all you can do is ‘heh’.

hee. A girlish titter. A giggle. You are wearing a pretty skirt, one of your bebo buddies has made a comment about Lily Allen’s makeup on T4 and you are making a strange high pitched sound which sounds like a tire deflating. heeeeee.

The classics.

lol. Debatable if you come across as a 16 year old girl with a crazy garish myspace profile or a off-the-cuff ‘I’m down with the kids’ laugh out loud. So long as you don’t put a after the lol - you’re safe.

ha - triumphant. haha - sarcastic. hahaha - geninue rib tickling Basil Brush outburst. boom boom!

Black Belt

lololo. I like this one. Ironic, gregarious and almost palindromic - if I’m actually cackling to myself it’s a definite lololo.

mwhahaha. The evil villian laugh; solely for laughing if you have a dastardly scheme and you’ll just delivered the final bullet point in your world domination powerpoint.

‘So then what?’
‘Then I release the sharks! mwhahaha!’

bwhahahaha. The daddy of laughs, the bastard but less evil child of ‘mwhahaha’. Leaning back in your chair, raucously guffawing - ha’s spilling out your mouth, milk out of your nose. Slighty schadenfreudey with the side order of bellyache this is my favorite. BWHAHAHAHAHHA!