If You Reply “LOL” to Feedback, I Will Take It Personally

By Ken Hollow, professional overthinker and part-time emoji decoder

Feedback is supposed to be constructive. Helpful. Collaborative. Instead, it’s often delivered in the most emotionally ambiguous format possible: the single “LOL.”

When a client replies “LOL” to something I’ve sent, my brain doesn’t hear laughter. My brain hears:

• “This is bad and I’m laughing at you.”
• “You’ve misunderstood the brief in such a spectacular way it’s almost funny.”
• “I don’t have the energy to explain what’s wrong, so here’s a hollow chuckle.”

🔹 The Problem With Digital Tone

Tone is a fragile thing in written communication. Without body language, “LOL” can mean:

• Genuine amusement
• Mild annoyance
• Thinly veiled sarcasm
• The awkward filler you type when you don’t know how to end a sentence

And when you’re a freelancer — already living in a constant state of “Do they hate it or do they love it?” — that little acronym can spiral you into three hours of self-doubt.

🔹 Variations on the Theme

Let’s break down the “LOL” family:

1. LOL. (with a period)
Passive-aggressive royalty. This is the feedback equivalent of saying “Sure, Jan.”

2. lol (lowercase)
The casual, dismissive shrug. They’re not impressed, but they’re not mad enough to start a thread.

3. LMAO
Dangerous. Either you’ve nailed it in a wildly unexpected way, or you’ve made a glaring error they find hilarious.

4. 😂
The emoji cousin. Often safer, but can still mean “This is so off-brand it’s comical.”

🔹 My Personal Greatest Hits

Some actual client “LOL” moments:

• Sent a draft caption for Nana Vix about retrograde energy. She replied: “LOL, Mercury isn’t even in retrograde right now.” (It was.)
• Designed a hero banner for a SaaS client. They said, “LOL, we’d never use this color palette.” (They gave me the palette.)
• Suggested a simpler copy line. Response: “LOL, yeah no.”

🔹 Decoding the Hidden Subtext

A lot of these “LOL”s are just the written version of a client smirking while they disagree with you. It’s a weird power play — light enough to avoid conflict, loaded enough to make you doubt your choices.

But sometimes, they genuinely are amused. And that’s even worse, because now you don’t know if your work is funny-good or funny-bad.

🔹 Survival Tactics for LOL-Induced Anxiety

1. Ask Directly — “Glad that made you laugh — is that a good thing or should I revise?”
2. Anchor the Conversation — Repeat back their feedback to confirm you understand. (“So you’d prefer a different tone here?”)
3. Separate Intent from Impact — Their tone might be sloppy, not malicious.
4. Don’t Reply in Kind — Matching their vague tone with your own “LOL” just adds to the confusion spiral.

🔹 The Bigger Issue

“LOL” is just one symptom of a larger feedback plague — the over-reliance on chat shorthand in professional communication. Clients fire off messages like they’re texting a friend, forgetting that:

• We can’t hear tone.
• We don’t have context for inside jokes.
• Every extra layer of ambiguity slows the actual work.

🔹 Nana Vix and the LOL That Broke Me

The worst one? Nana sent “LOL, you’re too much” after I suggested a content plan that she had pitched to me last month. I stared at the message for five full minutes wondering if I was being praised, dismissed, or gaslit.

Spoiler: it was all three.

🔹 Final Thoughts (Typed With Caution)

Every “LOL” in a feedback thread is a tiny emotional landmine. Sometimes you step on it and nothing happens. Sometimes it blows up your whole afternoon.

So I’ve stopped reading “LOL” as “laugh out loud.” Now I read it as “lots of layers” — of meaning, of interpretation, of second-guessing.

And if you’re a client reading this: maybe just say what you mean. Or at least add a smiley so I know whether to cry.

Ken Hollow, full-time creative, part-time tone detective