LOL as a full stop

When did lol become punctuation? It's a ridiculous phrase that materialised on MSN chat when one teenager said to another something they deemed to be funny, how to respond? How would they put their approval into type? The acronym for "Laugh Out Loud" regardless of whether they had or not. In reality it meant, "oh, that was a joke-I should respond in the expected manner." And it was fine used this way, it served a purpose teenagers telling other teenagers that they had made a funny. Then they had to explain what it meant to aunties and older relatives who thought it was cool to be 'down wit da kids' and started using it as well, then it snuck in to spoken language-mostly by the group that first coined it, I'd hear them at the bus stop "Hey that guy over there has a silly moustache!" "lol" or "When I saw Kristina trip on the stair in front of Jason I lolled." Again it actually had a meaning and was irritating but acceptable. With the increasing popularity of social networking sights and texting meant trying to get something said in as few characters as possible and we saw lol become a good way to get the last word, as far as I can see there is no real response to lol apart from maybe the ever more ridiculous acronyms that followed rotflol pmsl rotfpmslolstc-see where this is going? It seemed that soon we would all be talking in letters with different accents or combinations to mean different things. It was becoming a non-responsive response, it meant nothing or at best "I can think of nothing to type here but I need to make my presence felt so-lol"

Now it's just getting stupid beyond belief, I've seen people that I know and care for declare to the world via their status update that they are "off to bed after a brilliant night lol" why laugh? why not just say goodnight-or not, as the person is indicating that they are tired and are going to bed there's no need to tell everyone I'm sure they'ed work it out when you didn't lol their next status update? Or even better "bought broccoli lol" I mean WTF? sorry, what the fuck? Really? Why 'laugh out loud' buying fucking broccoli? These people must be hilarious to watch wandering round Tesco putting vegetables into their trolley laughing at it then taking their phone out of their pocket to tell the world about every item they have purchased and that they found it so funny that the staff in their local supermarket have probably given them an amusing nick name?

When did lol become the new full stop? It seems to have gone under my radar and I don't understand the hilarity of the world. It's just stupid and people that use it incessantly should be shot. There, I've said it. It feels good to get that lot off of my chest.

Night bloggazzzzz lol