The Rice University Neologisms Database

Hysterical laugh A very strange, yet also common, word. When the emoticon XD was became extremely popular (probably back in 2004), people on the internet started using ECKS DEE! instead of typing XD, probably to be different, and to be funny. The change was such a success that Ecks Dee started popping up everywhere, in some placing becoming more popular than the venerable 'lol' that exploded in usage when the internet became popular. Slowly, people started neglecting to put the space between the two 'letters', and so the word ecksdee came into usage. Since the initial explosion of use, the popularity has dropped off a bit, but there seems to always be a core of people who will still use this expression. Since reading it online, I have also heard it spoken in real life. This phrase seems to be popular among the "gamers" in the internet community, as they tend to be the most radically different and also more of a social pull than any other group out there. As such, it probably does not have very much respect among those who take themselves too seriously, as gamers are looked down upon for being immature- mainly for creating and religiously using new words, such as ecksdee.