======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
I’ve been on a crusade as of late to bring back “LOL.” Seriously, I cannot get enough of it. It’s aggressive and feisty and reminds me of something that a sassy soccer mom named Becky would say in a passive aggressive Facebook comment. Like, “Oh, no! Your daughter has lice? Best of luck shaving her head and washing every piece of clothing/linen in your house. At least her school pictures this year will be hilarious!! LOL.” Newsflash: Becky is not laughing with you, she is laughing at you. And that’s why I love “LOL” — because it’s kind of mean. No one uses it because they’re actually laughing. No, no. It is exclusively used in an effort to be a kind of a bitch…without being an in your face HR/PTA violation. “LOL” is the grown-up version of a mean playground insult followed by “just kidding!” And just like that little shit, Bobby Cranton, wasn’t “just kidding!” when he said your bangs made you looked cross-eyed, Becky sure as shit does not think your little girl’s bald head will look cute in the school yearbook.
In my recent attempt to bring back this early 2000s term (that used to just mean “laugh out loud” — you know, without the extra side of bitch), I started thinking about other texting/email acronyms I’d like to have in use.
1. WYNP
Used exclusively for best friends, romantic interests, siblings, parents, pizza delivery boys, cab drivers, and primary care physicians, “WYNP” stands for “What’s Your Netflix Password?” The secret to using this term successfully is to treat it like nudes: never give, only receive.
2. IFHMB
This term comes in handy during meetings, as “IFHMB” means “I Fucking Hate My Boss.” Much like the middle school “POS” or “Parents Over Shoulder” for those of you who weren’t popular, this acronym is best used when you need to openly shit talk your manager without getting caught.
3. HH2N
When you’re drowning in student loans and your boss is one bad mood away from firing you, sometimes you don’t have the time or the energy to type out “Happy Hour Tonight?” And, so, you lose what little pride you have, and fire off “HH2N” to every single contact in your phone. Screw it, you’ll take drinking with your mom over drinking alone at this point.
4. BCAP
For the romantics of the world, “BCAP” means “Bring Condoms And Pizza.” It will forever change how you treat casual sex — for the best, of course.
5. ISSU
“I’m sleeping, shut up” is best reserved for when — you guessed it — you’re sleeping and your roommate will not shut the eff up over on his/her side of the wall. Forgoing the acronym and going with actual words requires effort and punctuation and you, the poor, tired roommate, have no time for such things. Fire off a quick “ISSU” and you’ll be back to a peaceful slumber (and likely spit in your leftovers) in no time.
6. CTP
Sometimes you have no money. And by “no money” I mean that you’re just poor as fuck. Your bank account is in the red, your rent is due next week, and you’ve been living off of Ramen and Easy Mac for the past twenty-two days. Life couldn’t get any worse. Well, that is until someone texts you about weekend plans and you’re reminded that not everyone is one missed day of work away from welfare. Nope, some people your age actually have their shit together — and that sucks. So, instead of replying to their “Thinking dinner at 8 (you know, somewhere nice), then cocktails at the W, and then we’ll just see where the nights takes us. You in?” with a longwinded excuse of how you’ll be out of town because your grandmother’s turtle died, just buck up, be a (wo)man, and let them know the truth with a simple “CTP” known otherwise as “Can’t. Too Poor.” Does it suck to be so brutally honest? Yes. But, hey, at least that asshole won’t bother you again. After all, he doesn’t hang around the struggling types. .
Image via Shutterstock
Respond
Catie Warren
Catie struggles with adulthood and has been celebrating her 21st birthday for the past three years. She attended college in the nation’s capital and to this day is angry that Pit Bull lied to her, as you cannot, in fact, party on The White House lawn. Prior to her success with PGP, Catie was most famous for being featured in her hometown newspaper regarding her 5th grade Science Fair Project for which she did not place. In her spare time, she enjoys attributing famous historical quotes to Marilyn Monroe and getting in fights with thirteen year olds on twitter. Email: catie@grandex.co
@catie__warren
@catie__warren
I’ve been thinking and I agree with the suggestions that there should be a PG Forum. Since there isn’t a space for me to discuss I will start here. 3 quick thoughts:
1. We are NOT TFM. Most of us were Greek, but now we are all desk jockeys.
2. We can keep ourselves entertained on the site while the staff decides not to post anything before 10:00AM everyday (it doesn’t go unnoticed)
3. Our discussions will generate ideas for future columns and articles that you can build off of thus increasing your shares and site traffic. Because as much as I like to think you know what we go through on a daily basis you are still Grandex. There is not a 50 year old named Gary a mile of your office.
I am on this site because I like feeling a bond with the other people on here. No, I don’t know Boone or the other regular commenters personally but I like to see what they say. I like knowing there are other people fighting the same fight.
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying” – Michael Jordan.
I look forward to your feedback.
I agree. I think a lot of people want a PGP forum. The problem is that the TFM trolls abused the privilege and I think there is a fear that they would simply come over here and raise hell.
Is moderation out of the question? To be perfectly honest with you I never spent a lot of time on the TFM forum because well, you know… I’m in my late twenties (PGP) so I can’t speak on what debacle might have occurred over there, but I can see a true benefit on this site.
If everyone behaved then it could be awesome and very beneficial for a lot of reasons. It’s obviously not up to me, but I’m in your corner. I’ll start bugging people about it.
Likelihood of group of people ‘behaving’ on the Internet sans moderation… Zero. But it’s really not that hard to moderate a forum with the right tools. Just think about all the additional ad revenue!!
You could always ban users. Like how TFM and TSM blackballs. PGP could give unruly trolls a “pink slip”
From my understanding, the main problem on the forums was people posting porn and extremely racist remarks. But that was happening in the TFM comments section too. I’d imagine the forums are just harder to regulate.
Pretty much.
Just a thought, but maybe go through an application/introductory phase where you can view, but not comment? Might help with the trolls.
I am sure that PG Drew has some ideas that would go a long way in terms of helping to get this going. I know I have a few ideas that I would be happy to talk with you guys about to help get the forum going with little risk of the trolls ruining the advertiser relationships for Grandex.
ROTFLMFAO. Do you seriously think anyone at Grandex is interested in taking a meeting with “Pepto Bismol” and “PG Drew” to discuss implementation of the forums? Is this your normal means of making a business proposal? In the comments? This is beyond funny! This is Buzzfeed “10 Worst Business Pitches” funny! And I’m sure that picture in your Twitter feed, of the woman with the airplane stuck in her, will go a long way towards helping you land this deal! Hahahahahahah
Oh yeah what a brilliant idea. You have just Fixed The Internet. You are my hero.
“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” -Knox
“If there is grass on the field play, if not play in the mud” -knox
Isn’t that why there are moderators and admins?
Can’t agree more with you, Drew. I actually didn’t know TFM had a forum until it was taken down (PGP, amirite?). But it would be a great place to actually get to know the people on here a little better. Everyone on here is a lot more mature than TFM.
I think notice should be taken to the responses on here. We, as the mob, aren’t asking for this so we can shit on the staff or talk about porn, I think everyone sees the true benefit in it. Correct me if I’m wrong here but is there another site where people from similar backgrounds in similar current situations can kick around ideas openly? I won’t say PGP could build a community or following like the chive, but essentially you would be building a brand. The site would generate traffic on its own without being reliable on just the writers for the site.
The Gartner Group states that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come form 20% of your existing customers.
In 1 second of any business class you learn the value of customer retention and the cost of attracting a new customer. PGP has a strong following with the same individuals I see on here daily. I just see something that has strong potential and this site could be the vehicle to provides it.
I vote PG Drew for Mayor of the future PGP Forums.
I may be naive, but I really don’t think the TFM users would come crash our forum party. A couple reasons:
1. Go to TFM and search “PGP”. Although the forum is gone, you can still read snippets of peoples’ old forum posts. The general perception TFM users seem to have of PGP is that it is boring, sad, and depressing. None of the 18-21 year olds that TFM targets are going over to PGP to read columns when they are perfectly amused with the TFM columns.
2. Even if they were to find out PGP had a forum and came to post on it, I really don’t think they would enjoy the majority of its topics. Be honest, when you were 21 would you want to discuss things like $/sqft of apartments in different cities, the creepiest things you have overheard the 50 year old that sits behind you say, or fun but inexpensive honeymoon destinations?
I pledge to buy a Rowdy Gentleman t-shirt for the 4th of July if the PGP Forums become a reality.
Why don’t people go out and make actual real-life friends instead of creating fake “communities” of anonymous “people” online?
Fireflygirl77 why don’t you take your own advice and fuck off?
If you have to ask these kind of questions, you clearly don’t get what we are trying to accomplish here.
Wrong my anti-diarrheal friend. I absolutely get what you are trying to accomplish here. You are trying to create an online life to substitute for the actual life that you obviously don’t have!
What are you, 16? Is there some high school brand of Grandex that you are part of? Casue that would explain how you mistakenly found this website.
Internet Indignation is so cute…
The thumbs down feature could essentially be the admin where x ammounts of thumbs down will remove or hide the post.
The comments section on Yahoo articles has this implemented. Where too many down votes you have to expand the comment. I always expand the comment, curiosity gets me every time.
Therefore it does not function adequately as a means of self-moderation.
Fireflygirl, shouldn’t you be blowing your load at a One Direction concert? Now get lost, grown ups are talking.
I just love all these How To Fix The Forums ideas that people are throwing out. As if, assuming Grandex is actually contemplating a forum resurrection, they will pull out these comments and say “Wow, this HumorHeals guy, he’s got some great ideas! And to think we just gave that consulting firm full of experienced experts $20000 when the solution was right there in the comments for an article about texting abbreviations!”
This might be too late to be seen, but I’ve wished there was a forum of some kind to ask people who clearly have a like mind on the right places to check out if I’m stuck in a random city for a weekend. You can find touristy stuff to do anywhere online, but sometimes I just want to know the bar to go to as a 20-something from other 20-something’s who spend too much of their paycheck on booze.
I’ve never had to ask for advice about finding a place to get drunk.
maybe not, but you have asked the internet to find you a new grandpa to date.
You are the worst troll ever.
We could start a subreddit and then they wouldn’t have to worry about moderating it.
We could fix up the barn and put on a show!
I can’t be the only one that almost hopes again any future forum due to the drop in work productivity it may cause.
I really, truly hate myself for that comment.
Forum? Ah’m agin’ it!
Is Catie using #2 to call out Brian?
Yes.
Lose twenty.
You are not a very nice web troll.
Don’t listen to him Catie. You’re great the way you are. If I didn’t have such immense respect for McGannon…… *trails off*
Why don’t you finish the sentence. I’m sure the world would love to hear the totally unrealistic fantasy to which you were alluding.
Give her the goddamn pay raise, Brian.
I always assumed Brian was an Idea Man, not a Numbers and Figures Fella. You can’t further burden a genius with payroll. And by genius, I mean Brian’s column on the 22 ft. Sun Tracker Party Barge. That column changed my whole perspective on shit, much like bathing with spider monkeys off the coast of St. Bart’s for 2 weeks did for Hansel. Until then, I had always assumed that a long, black Caddilac car was the universal symbol for “I’ve Arrived!” But now my dreams seem much more attainable. I’ll purchase myself a fine pontoon boat, attach my 14′ aluminum john-boat to it, promote myself to Admiral, and then go straight to war with a case of Budweiser. Heroics and gore, followed by glottony, that’ll captivate an audience.
Hire this man.
I’d write for your team any day, O Captain, my Captain. Perhaps one day we’ll pull our Sun Trackers alongside one another, nod our Straw Party Hat topped heads at each other in a gesture of mutual respect, and proceed to finish our ice-cold Bud Heavys (cleverly disguised by Coca- Cola koozies) whilst our 19-year-old bikini-clad compatriots depart our vessels for the evening bonfire party. Maybe we’d even make some small talk…
“Yours an ’08?”
“’09.”
“Very nice. Engine ever run a little hot?”
“Occasionally, but I own a couple of Twice-The-Ice’s, so I just cool ‘er down as need be.”
“Smart man. You ever thought about sellin’ her?”
“My wife?! Of course! Highest bidder! Nah man, I’m just pullin’ yer leg. I put ole “Shiela” up for sale on the eBay a couple of months ago, you know, just to see what she’d fetch monetary figure wise. My sum-a-bitchin’ brother-in-law, D-Wayne, offered up 9k for ‘er, so I threw a rock at one of his kids, you know, as a way of sayin’, “Serious Inquiries Only.”
She should be paid by the pound…
You should probably slow your roll.
Wow. Authentic hipster gibberish! Call the urban dictionary!