The following will initially seem like a diversion. Bear with me. When I was in college, I worked for the theatre department's costume shop under a Mr. Lou Bird. (I'm not kidding.) Lou is an interesting guy, and one of his theories was that a person can perfect a laugh that will get him out of any social bind, even one he himself creates. Lou often experimented in order to find this perfect social laugh by saying things like "Oh my god, your ass looks enormous today! What have you been eating? Chocolate Cadillacs?" Then giving a laugh of some sort. It was funny, unless I was the butt of the experiment. I don't think he ever found that perfect laugh.
The laugh derives from a long, genteel tradition of using a mitigating phrase in conjunction with a cutting remark: "Oh, you're so pretty when you fix yourself up!" Or, in an indirect form, "He has the worst breath I ever did see, bless his heart." Regional variations of "bless his heart" include "bless his stars" and "bless his little cotton socks." Sometimes a small touch on the forearm or knee accompanies these phrases.
Southern uses of "bless your heart" are often quite complex, shifting from affectionate to biting and back within one conversation. But the suppressed kiss-off gets the most play, as in a shortened version of a long joke.
Southern Lady 1: My husband just bought me a big diamond ring.
Southern Lady 2: Oh, bless your heart.
Lady 1: What did your husband get you?
Lady 2: He gave me a trip to finishing school.
Lady 1: Poor thing! Why ever would he do that?
Lady 2: So I could learn to say "bless your heart" instead of "fuck you."
So, to bring it back, I think sometimes LOL is a new manifestation of this social form of veiled hostility. You can write anything on the web, no matter how petty or pointed, so long as you follow it up with LOL. The reader can't hear which laugh you're using.
Disclaimer: This post in no way comments on or accuses any commenter on this weblog of engaging in the rhetorical device I describe.
3 comments:
"The reader can't hear which laugh you're using." And in [cyber]space, nobody can year you scream. I like that you use hostility that isn't, er, veiled at all, to take down those whom you accuse of using veiled hostility.
Yeah, I was never very good at subtle conflict. I like to drag it all out there in the open.
disclaimer - your disclaimer made me laugh and not in the lol way, but in the rotfl way.
it was nice to take a short break to catch up on your blogs, guys (including sam in this too!)
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