"lol", "ngl", "it's giving": why we talk in code online

Take a second to actually read a group chat. Between the "lol"s, the "idk"s, the "ngl"s and the words whose meaning has shifted three times since last year, you realize a good chunk of it isn't the writing you're taught in school. It's a language of its own, with its shortcuts, its codes and its inside jokes that keep renewing themselves. People often call it a decline, or laziness. In reality, it's a ruthlessly efficient communication system — and, like any language, it says a lot about the people who speak it.

Writing fast, but above all writing together

The first job is obvious: on a phone keyboard, the shorter it is, the faster it goes. Abbreviating saves time and keeps up with a conversation that races by. But if it were only about speed, everyone would use the same shortcuts, everywhere, forever. And that's not what happens: every group, every circle has its quirks, its favorite words, its own way of phrasing things. The real point isn't just to write fast, it's to write together. Using the right word at the right moment sends a quiet signal: "I'm one of you, I talk like you, we're on the same wavelength."

A code that sorts those who get it

This language works a bit like a password. If you catch the reference, the joke, the hidden meaning behind an expression, it means you're part of the circle. If not, you're left at the door, politely, without anyone having to say it. That implicit sorting explains why the vocabulary refreshes so fast: as soon as a word becomes too well known, picked up by parents, teachers or brands, it loses its power of recognition. It's no longer a badge of belonging, just an ordinary word. So the group moves on, invents or twists a new term, and the loop starts again. It isn't instability for nothing: it's the very mechanism that keeps the language "theirs".

Constant creativity (and a real skill)

Behind the apparent chaos lies wild inventiveness: you shorten, you exaggerate, you take a word literally to turn it into a joke, you recycle an old phrase with a new tone. It's a living, playful language, where irony and deadpan are everywhere. And handling it isn't that easy: you have to sense the right tone, the right moment, the right level of seriousness. The real skill isn't talking in slang all the time, it's knowing how to switch registers — shorthand with friends, clean writing for an internship or a teacher — without picking the wrong context. Far from dumbing anything down, juggling these languages is more a sign of agility. Those who mock it often forget that they too, back in their day, had words of their own that adults didn't get.