I've only noticed just how frequently this is done. It's quite irritating:

'^5'
'ZING!'
'dinner?'
'man the fuck up' (or its acronym)
'^WRONG'
'/thread'
'^racist'

etc, etc

Half the time it doesn't even make sense! (except '^this' which i accept does quite nicely in indicating that you agree with someone's point)

When it's someone's idiosyncrasy it's amusing (e.g. craigfoley's "dinner?" requests), but why does it become an online trend?! We should all take the example of the mullet comeback as a warning not to fascimile others.

I'll probably get slated for this, but hey-ho