🤣 ROFL Emoji Guide

The next time you ROFL, transfer that insanity online with 🤣

The last time we positively gave up all bodily control was when we literally rolled on the floor, laughing. It must’ve been a great joke or something so obnoxiously and maybe even unfunnily hilarious, that, hysterical laughter was the only way to calm the situation. Aching laughter, to be precise.

Rolling on the floor, laughing is probably the only time when our laugh is harder than the floor. We don’t care (mostly, we don’t heed to) what’s on the floor or the kind of flooring (especially if it’s unfamiliar) when our funny bones are being torturously tickled. 🤣 is the consequence, nonetheless.

🤣 is when you’re laughing out loud but on the floor. It’s when you’re ROFL-ing. This emoji is undoubtedly a powerful symbol of uncontrollable hilarity. It validates the joke a hundred times over, to such an extent that it physically begins to ache the listener.

Rolling on the Floor Laughing Emoji

Meaning of 🤣

Some of us snort just by looking at this emoji.

The 🤣 Rolling on the Floor Laughing emoji is the definition of a great laugh. It not only combines 😂 tears of joy and 😆 a grinning, squinting expression, but it also knocks the yellow-faced smiley down to the ground and shows that laughter punch with a tilt.

🤣 is the only emoji that’s tilted, on the list, and there lies its greatness. The emotional reaction is so strong, that the emoji itself defies the usual smiley design for emojis. Rolling on the floor, while laughing, as hilarious as it sounds, is that much painful yet relieving in reality.

First Things First

dan cook MCauAnBJeig unsplash

Did you know ROFL could mean anything besides Rolling On The Floor Laughing? It’s an acronym after all and can expand into anything under the sun.

Here are two possible and seldom used ROFL slangs – Ran Out For Lunch and Routing On Flat Labels, and here are some of our creations! Rake Out Fallen Leaves, Rapidly Overcome Fear of Losing, Respond Only with Forced Laughter, Reuse Old Fashionable Laundry, Rinse Out the Flaky Layers, and Rub Over that Forbidden Lamp.

There are a gazillion things you and we can still come up with ROFL. But Rolling On the Floor Laughing stuck and stood the test of virtual time. It is one of the most internet slangs and here’s ROFL’s story 🤣.

The Story Behind 🤣 ROFL

markus winkler 8cP 6sC7Hhw unsplash

ROFL has been one of the popular “texting slangs” since, the late 1980s. However, when this acronym first made it to the then mainstream media, it counted the ‘The’ too. It was ROTFL. The current version ate the tea.

The origin story of ROFL begins with someone called Chuq, who Rolled on the Floor Laughing because someone else couldn’t Read The F*ucking Manual (RTFM). The ROFL acronymic slang, indeed, began as a mockery over another juvenile acronym. But, it was 1989, and a lot of things were damn cool back then.

When ROTFL became all the rage, it collabed with a couple of other acronyms like LOL. The up-and-coming laughter acronym, ROTFL, combined with the popular laughing slang, LOL, that was scarily becoming the verbal reaction to humor in real life, birthed the infamous ROTFLOL aka Rolling On The Floor Laughing Out Loud.

Other collaborated combinations and variants of RO(T)FL are:

  • 🤣 RO(T)FL + LMAO = RO(T)FLMAO
    (Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off)
  • 🤣 RO(T)FL + F*cking = RO(T)FF
    (Rolling On The F*cking Floor)
  • 🤣 RO(T)FL
    (Rolling On The Floor Laughing)
  • 🤣 RO(T)F
    (Rolling On The Floor)

The Power of ROFL

Each time we’re hit with impeccable humor, we tend to lose control over our response to the impressive stimulus. Prolonged laughter, could sometimes end up in a dark place, like an epidemic, but the usual and healthy timeframe for unstoppable laughter lasts only a few minutes. Thankfully.

The impressive stimulus, we mentioned, needn’t always be embedded in a textual joke. It could be something embarrassing, something we’ve experienced and hence can feel the joke, and sometimes, laughter can also be a coping mechanism. It becomes one of our ways of dealing with pain, loss, stress, grief, and other tough emotions.

pexels edu carvalho 2050989

Our bodies, when clenched in laughter, enter a state of incontinence. They release endorphins and a bunch of other feel-good hormones to boost the overall experience of a good laugh.

Tears become a part and parcel of the show. We’re more tolerant of stress, embarrassment, fear, and danger when we’re ROFL. Our bodies relax, while burning some calories (as paradoxical as that sounds).

One of the best things about laughing hard is the person we’re laughing with. When we ROFL with someone, we may not fully be aware of this, but we’re creating some really sweet memories together. We enhance, not just our individual experience, but we also broaden that infectious energy. Thus strengthening our relationship and bond with the other person(s).

A ROFL session can, most of the time, be life-changing in so many ways.

What Else Does 🤣 Mean?

We’re clear that 🤣 is the emoji version of ROFL. It’s in the name and the pictograph as well. But, this emoji could mean something else apart from ROFL. It could mean, another acronym. LMAO!

🤣 is also be the emoji way of saying LMAO (Laughing My Ass Off). LMAO is an upgrade from LOl but it’s still a lesser reaction than ROFL. Here, you’re laughing your backside off over something that’s ridiculous, hilarious, and/or both.

LMAO (often ridiculously spelled as “la-mao”) is a laughing expression, where you laugh a little more than just loudly. It’s when you hit chairs, clap hands, hit the other person, jump on your seat, etc. Anything but not fall and roll on the floor, laughing.

Like every laughter-based acronym, LMAO too can be used both positively and not-so-positively (because there’s hardly anything negative in humor). Some jokes are for everyone, some aren’t, and 🤣 works for all the times when you’re LYAO (guess the change of word) just as much as it does when you’re ROTFL.

What Does it Mean When Someone Sends 🤣?

puvvukonvict photography Rw9A268KxiA unsplash

The 🤣 rolling on the floor laughing emoji can mean different things when sent by different senders. This gap of can be bridged by understanding the relationship between the sender and the receiver.

Here are three hypothetical instances based on the ‘circle of closeness’ between texters and the possibilities of what those instances could mean when either send 🤣.

When Someone You Know Very Well Sends 🤣

This is a clear sign of enjoyment. The other person is enjoying, on the floor. They’re laughing hard at something you said or did over chat. When you know someone very well, it’s quite easy to decipher their headspace and intention when they send an emoji. That’s the only probable advantage of familiarity because anyone could fake a laugh online.

When Someone You’re Getting to Know Sends 🤣

Believe it or not, but people don’t really use hyper-expressive emojis like 🤣 with strangers. It takes some level of emotional honesty and time to build that trust and lenience when it comes to using such emojis.

So, when someone you’re just getting to know ROFLs at something you said/did, that could suggest quite a few things.

They want to know you more but fast, they’re starting to like you, they like your sense of humor, they’re giving you clear-cut green signals of the relationship (whatever type it is) and where it’s heading, they want the conversation to last, or they just found the joke insanely funny, while being completely detached from you as a person (although, virtually).

When a Stranger Sends 🤣

This is a tricky situation and we’ve narrowed down the analysis to two hypothetical situations.

Situation 1: The person does not know you personally, but follows your page and is hence well-versed with your content if not with you.

Situation 2: The person is a complete stranger, someone you haven’t heard of, seen, or e-met/chatted with previously.

The first situation is understandable. When someone laughs at your content and not necessarily at something you said in a textual conversation, then that suggests appreciation, approval of what you’re doing/saying, support, and a sense of genuine validation.

The second situation is trickier. We’re specifying an unknown DM, that has 🤣 in it. The first step in such cases is to ask the sender what’s so funny, and the second is to block them because when someone sends 🤣 with no context, and as the first text or as a “quirky” way of becoming friends, it’s a sign the conversation may not end or go well.

What Does it Mean When Someone Sends Multiple 🤣?

caleb woods XfctvGNxn2Y unsplash

When we fail to contain our emotions in a single emoji, we naturally end up using more emojis. That applies to all emojis, including the ROFL emoji. So, when someone, irrespective of the gender and the relationship you have, sends two or more 🤣, that’s a sign they’re uproariously losing it over something you did or said on chat.

We’d like to vouch for the emoji-nal honesty when it comes to multiple emojis, especially in the case of the 🤣 rolling on the floor laughing emoji.

It may not always be an authentic expression when someone ROFLs with a single 🤣, but that’s highly likely with multiple 🤣. Someone would only invest those extra seconds sending extra emojis only when they genuinely find the context to be that stimulating.

How to Use 🤣 Correctly?

dave moreno dbhh4Z7GYL0 unsplash

As far as virtual emotional honesty goes, we recommend using 🤣 when you truly find something breathtaking and gut-wrenchingly funny.

Think about this. You wouldn’t fall off your chair, onto the ground, over every single funny thing you come across every day, right?

Similarly, using 🤣 for every single piece of humor would soon scrub the luster off of the emoji and your personal sense of humor.

Plus, it could be embarrassing if you’re rolling on the floor laughing online at something that wasn’t even intended to be funny in the first place. So, we advise witty but appropriate and meaningful use of 🤣.

Related Emojis to 🤣

Apart from 🤣, there are a couple more laughing emojis, each with varying wavelengths of humored responses. No two “laughing emojis” mean the same, they all have their own response to something funny depending on the proficiency of the joke.

😂 Face With Tears of Joy Emoji

😂 is the closest cousin of the 🤣 ROFL emoji. The face with tears of joy evidently, has tears as well. Not tears of sadness, but happy tears caused by a maniacal burst of laughter.

😂 happens to be the more famous laughing emoji for two reasons. One, ROFL is a rare reaction, making 😂 the more common response to humor. And two, 😂 was official a little before 🤣. So, going by both emoji seniority and emotional response, 🤣 is an exclusive laughing emoji.

😹 Smiling Cat With Tears of Joy Emoji

As you can tell, this one’s the feline version of the 😂 tears of joy emoji. It exemplifies everything the root emoji is about, only with a different source of perspective; a cat.

This emoji evokes a cat-like expression towards something. It can also mean to be ridiculously funny response to something that’s ridiculously funny.

🤭 Face With Hand Over Mouth Emoji

First of all, we’d like to warn you against the deceptiveness of this emoji. 🤭 is seemingly an innocent chuckle, blush, or a giggle over something, but it can also be a humble beginning to a tickled showdown. 🤭 is an appetizer in emoji reactions towards humor. It’s the start of something big.

😅 Grinning Face With Sweat Emoji

This one’s the laugh of embarrassment. It embodies an embarrassed reaction to something that isn’t life-threateningly humiliating, but rather casual and digestible. 😅 is also the “laugh” you’d let out when something is stupid, silly, obvious, or stupidly cute.

😆 Grinning Face With Squinting Eyes Emoji

Not to throw any shade on this emoji, but it is a mocking laugh. 😆 could refer to other kinds of laughter too, given that laughing, generally, does squeeze our eyes inwards. 😆 is a humorous response to hilarity, but from the perspective of “friendly mockery”, or strangely, vice versa.

In Conclusion

The 🤣 rolling on the floor laughing emoji is a one-of-a-kind humored reaction. It responds to the highest and the best form of humor and is hence the strongest “laughing emoji” on the list.

🤣 holds together physical ache and contentment over releasing unapologetic guffaws, and splatters that satisfaction on any digital platform.

We’d like to end by repeating ourselves, 🤣 is indeed a rare emotional reaction considering the amount of guts it relaxes in the process. So, it’s recommended to save 🤣 for the best.