East Coast vs. West Coast - the IM War

When one is IMing a Los Angeles media professional and one types something deemed amusing, the response tends to be ‘lol.’ But when one performs the same linguistic operation to an East Coast communicant in the same professional cohort, the response is always ‘hahaha’ or ‘heheh.’ What to make of this schism? Are Angelenos more comfortable with claiming (well, pretending) that they’re “laughing out loud” while New Yorkers have an idiomatic tendency towards ironic quasi-onomatopoeia? Expect a full analysis of this issue on the next slow news day.