The Haha Scale

Introduction

Communicating through text is hard. Apparently, reacting to the things your hilarious friends say is also difficult, because you’ve invented “words” like haha, lol, rofl, and lmao to show when something is funny to you.

On top of the ridiculous words you’ve invented, it’s still impossible to tell when one thing is funnier than another. Is hahaha more or less funny than lol? Is 😂 stronger than 💀? More importantly, how many skull emojis does it take before we collectively agree you’re being dramatic? Animals.

Usage

This system is designed to give you and your chronically online friends a uniform way to communicate your reaction to funny stuff. It’s pretty simple, but you should probably pay attention.

There are only three rules:

Humor is measured from ha1 to ha10.
A ha1 may also be expressed as a ha.
Don’t use lol ever again.

Examples

ha1 = Someone replies with just “this” to your message.

ha2 = Friend sends you a TikTok that’s been on your FYP for weeks.

ha3 = Dad discovers a meme format from 2020 and thinks he’s hilarious.

ha4 = Someone sends a Minion meme unironically.

ha5 = Coworker shares a millennial pause video in the group chat.

ha6 = Friend accidentally sends a meme to the family group chat that was meant for the homies.

ha7 = Friend sends perfectly timed SpongeBob meme in response to your life crisis.

ha8 = That friend who quotes Vine/TikTok audio at the perfect moment IRL.

ha9 = That one friend who always finds unhinged Twitter/X threads before they blow up.

ha10 = Someone creates an entire PowerPoint presentation just to roast you in the group chat.

Summary

At the end of the day, your friends probably aren’t as funny as their algorithm-curated content makes them seem, but at least now we can all be on the same page with our reactions to humor. Please stop loling. We’re begging you.

Downloads

To assist you in saving the world from lol, you’ll probably want to download our iMessage sticker pack on the app store, and our custom Slack emoji as well.

Slack Emoji

Credits

If you think this is ha10, you should probably check your sense of humor (and follow us on Twitter because we occasionally achieve ha6 status).

Follow @jonathansimmons Follow @joshferrara