The other day, I came across a 2012 post from a Facebook friend that looked like it belonged in a museum of early internet culture.
LuKINg fwd 2 da nyT OWt in LNg St WhR r aLL my HmebOYZ @?????
Looking at it now, I can’t imagine typing like that again. I doubt any of us millennials do. It’s one of those things that defined a moment in time—a phase we all went through together.
On Mxit and the early version of Facebook, proper grammar and full words felt out of place. The point wasn’t to write well—it was to connect quickly and easily, and we created a whole shorthand to make it happen. In today’s post, I’ll look back at some of the chat style that defined a generation. How many of the below acronyms are you still using?
Do You Still Speak In Mxit? Here’s Some Of The Most Iconic Chat Phrases.
ASL
One of the most classic Mxit acronyms, ASL, was the standard icebreaker when meeting someone new online. If you wanted to know more about someone, this was the go-to question — Age, Sex, Location. Sometimes “r” for “race” was added.
HUD
HUD was a Mxit greeting. It means How You Doing? and in true Mxit style, we left out the “are.”
WMJ
WMJ, which stood for Wat Maak Jy (“what are you doing” in English) was one of the most overused and annoying greetings. You’d ask it out of habit, even though you knew you’d probably get the same reply every time.
WUD/WUUP2
WUD (What Are You Doing?) and WUUP2 (What Are You Up To?) were classic phrases used to start a conversation on Mxit — part of the Holy Trinity of greetings alongside WMJ (Wat Maak Jy?).
WTV
WTV means Watching TV. You were either chilling with a show or pretending to watch TV while scrolling through Mxit.
L2M
L2M meant you were Listening to Music. This was the default when you were vibing to your favourite tracks,
LOMB / LIB
Lying On My Bed or Lying In Bed was one of the answers to WUD (What Are You Doing?), which said “I’m not doing anything but chatting with you because I’m that bored.”
JC
JC means Just Chilling. You were either lying in bed, watching TV, or scrolling aimlessly through your phone, but whatever it was, you were JC.
NM
NM (Not Much) was a one-word response when you weren’t feeling chatty. Most often, it was followed up with a phrase like LOMB or JC, signaling that you weren’t doing anything important but were open to talking.
LMK
When something was funny, or you had to pretend something was funny, you would use LMK—Lag My Klaar—which translates to “laughing until I’m done.”
LMIMP / LMIMM
Lmimp means Lag My In My P***s and Lmimm means Lag My In My M**R. It’s like you laughed so hard you could feel it in your bones… or in places that were just a bit too much to admit.
LMJ
If LMK wasn’t enough, we had LMJ, which stood for Lag My Jas. It was a more intense version of LMK, meaning you were laughing so hard that you felt like you were going crazy.
LOKL
There was LOL (laugh out loud), and then there was LOKL (Laugh Out K@K Loud). The word “kak,” which means “very” in a colourful, Capetonian way, was thrown in there just to make sure everyone knew you were laughing extra hard.
G2G
When it was time to wrap up the conversation, G2G was the quick and easy way to sign off. Short for Got To Go, this one was a casual exit that let your contacts know you were logging off or leaving the chat.
About The Author
