Meaning
What does ASL mean?
The meaning of ASL is either “Age, Sex, Location” or “as hell”.
The abbreviation can be encountered in multiple contexts, which greatly affect the connotation associated with it, although the expression is mostly used online, in chats.
Origin
What's the origin of ASL?
“Asl” can be traced back to 1998, when the internet was starting to become more and more viral and people were eager to chat with random strangers.
The first sense of the expression emerged at this time, for getting all the basic information about our chatting partner and is still in use up to this day on sites such as Omegle.
Spread & Usage
How did ASL spread?
The abbreviation was first defined on Urban Dictionary in the early 2000’s, as the expression for gathering information about one’s brand new online friend or girlfriend.
Around the year 2010, however, a new meaning had emerged for “asl” on social media sites.
People started using the letters as an abbreviation for the phrase “as hell”, mostly due to similar pronunciation and in the following decade, it had turned into an intensifier just like “af”.