What does ASL mean?

A question asking for someone’s age, gender, and where they live. It was the universal opener of early chatrooms and Omegle — often the very first message strangers exchanged.

How to use it

Still used in random-chat culture, sometimes ironically. On modern platforms it can come across as abrupt or nosy; many people prefer to let those details come up naturally. Never feel obliged to answer it.

Examples

• Stranger: hey, asl?
• You: 20s, taken, somewhere warm 😄

In a real chat

Where it comes from

ASL comes from the text chatrooms of the 1990s, on services like AOL and IRC, where nobody could see anyone and the first thing people wanted to know was who they were talking to. It carried straight over into random chat sites like Omegle, which is why it still turns up as an opener today.

Is it friendly or rude?

Neutral to blunt. As a very first message it can read as nosy, or as though the other person is being screened, especially the “sex” part. It lands better a few messages in, or softened to “where are you from?”

Spellings and variations

You will also see “a/s/l”, “asl?” and “asl pls”. Some people answer in the same compressed format, like “21 m uk”. The modern, softer version is simply “where are you from?”, which asks for the least personal of the three details and is far easier to answer.

Common mistakes

The mistake is treating ASL as a form you have to fill in. Your exact age and city are not needed for a good conversation, and sharing them with someone you met seconds ago is how people get found or targeted. Sending ASL as your only message is the other trap: many people hit Next straight away, because it signals you are screening them rather than talking to them.