365 days later

Try this.

Type *happy birthday* and put a period in place of the exclamation point.

Happy birthday.

To which anyone's reaction is going to be: "Thanks, ass. Glad to see you're so pleased I made it to 30. No cake for you."

It's really missing something without the exclamation point and, even though I really, really don't like to use them, exclamation points have become vital to expressing yourself in text form.

I am rarely excited enough about anything I text or post on the Internet to put an exclamation point. Even in person, if you were to write down every time I've said something like "happy birthday", I don't think you'd find many exclamation points there. You can be enthusiastic without being bombastic, which, I think, is what the exclamation point is for. No, says the general Internet populous? Bombast is the double exclamation point's role? Touche.

"Happy birthday." reeks of formality, a statement uttered only because a little red box popped up on Facebook, or that date happened to be brought to your attention. "Happy birthday." means that "I don't think you're very important as a friend and this is just a courtesy birthday acknowledgement. "Happy birthday!" comes with it an entirely different set of undertones. Things like "I'm glad I'm your friend", or "Let's get wasted" or "Thanks for giving me that extra tuna fish sandwich last Thursday".

All from an exclamation point.