What does the slang acronym ‘IJBOL’ mean?
by: Michael Bartiromo
(NEXSTAR) – Just when you thought you had them all memorized, yet another internet-driven slang term has arrived to make you feel out-of-touch.
The latest of these slang terms is “IJBOL,” an acronym that stands for “I just burst out laughing,” and can be used much in the same way as LOL (laughing out loud), ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) or LMAO (laughing my a– off).
As reported by The New York Times and Today.com, the acronym is increasingly being used on social media, or in texts, to convey users’ reactions to something they find surprisingly hilarious. It was first embraced by the K-Pop fan community in 2021, the Times reported.
As of this week, many users on X (formerly Twitter) appeared to be adopting the term more frequently in their posts, though plenty of those posts were also poking fun at the term, or mocking the media outlets that reported on the acronym’s alleged popularity.
In any case, searches for “IJBOL” have been spiking in recent months according to Google Trends — perhaps evidence that users are desperately trying to find meaning in a word they’re seeing for the first time.
To that end, Dictionary.com added an entry for IJBOL on August 10, describing it as a term “used to express uncontrollable laughter or extreme amusement when someone finds something funny.”
The acronym can also stand for “I just bust/busted out laughing,” according to Dictionary.com.
It’s unclear if “IJBOL” will continue to be embraced in the long run, although Urban Dictionary indicates that its usage has already existed since at least 2009.
Why it failed to catch on earlier is anybody’s guess. Or not.
“IDK what ijbol means and at this point [I’m] too afraid to ask,” one Twitter user lamented in 2022.
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