The Group Chat Is Back And Its Influence Had Never Been Bigger
The group chat died. Or so half a dozen media op-eds, published last year, would have you believe. ‘All conversations must eventually come to an end,’ The New York Times argued, referring to those exchanges started during the pandemic, when the steady stream of texts, voice notes and memes lighting up our phones via iMessage, Facebook or WhatsApp (likely all three), was a lifeline.
During lockdown, the group chat was the panacea for our social-life blues. But then the world woke up again. We ditched freezing parks for pubs and swapped tracksuit bottoms for Y2K bumsters. ‘Keep your distance’ signs started to look quaint and, yes, we might’ve happily killed off more than a few groups.
Exhausted by the relentless pinging and the pressure to respond, or guilt from ghosting because you can’t possibly keep up (Facebook Messenger reports that over 2.5 million groups are created on the platform every day, with an average of 10 members each), many claimed that we had reached peak chat.
Emerging from the constant notifications, however, it became clear to me that not all group chats are created equal. Do I want to keep accidentally clicking one of 2,395,857 quick-fire messages about the communal bins in my apartment block when I’m trying to scroll Instagram in peace? No. That group is on mute – for a year.
Some groups I’ve felt obliged to remain in for standard updates, or reassurance that the fire alarms in my building are only going off due to Flat Four’s cremated dinner. These are the kinds of groups you can easily get away with lurking in, rather than adding to – like sharing a lift with a stranger, no one’s going to whinge if you don’t start a conversation about today’s weather.
But, separate to this, there’s a world of chat enjoying a post-pandemic boom in the groups that resemble the kinds of IRL conversations we have with friends. ‘Because life has gone back to normal, there isn’t time to indulge in long calls or chats like we did during the pandemic – you steal a moment between Zoom calls or lunches, and engage as and when you want to without pressure. It’s casual and fun again,’ says Lynette Nylander, an ELLE contributing editor and writer based between London and New York.
A co-conspirator in a committed group of Real Housewives fans called The Blogs (an IYKYK name for fans of the Potomac edition), we’ve both witnessed what makes a ‘good’ chat and why some conversations will never die. The context shifts, new partners enter the mix, people and opinions change. However different it might look, for many the group chat is back and popping.
What’s more, its influence is increasingly pervasive. Celebrities including Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Stone refer to inside gags born of group texts on talk shows. N-Sync and the Harry Potter cast say it helps them stay constantly and casually in touch. Even the royal family has a chat (but perhaps that one has permanently gone quiet). Authors shout out their WhatsApp groups in their book acknowledgments and Quinta Brunson thanked ‘my group text, The Butts’ when she won a Golden Globe this year.
The late Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White and former artistic designer for Louis Vuitton menswear, often did what he described as ‘designing by committee’ in WhatsApp groups. Details from the Off-White group chat were even turned into promotional material before shows, and Abloh celebrated an anniversary with Nike by publishing a group text where participants shared images, memories and more about the Dunk trainers.
Despite the dread of picking up your phone and realising you have hundreds of unread messages, our hyper-connectivity isn’t always considered a negative. ‘What we see in research is that people find a lot of positives in this “online-ness”,’ says Dr Joanne Meredith, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Wolverhampton, and an expert in how we interact with each other online. According to her, the group chat’s renaissance has a lot to do with identity and organising around our interests, much like traditional forums and message boards.
A quick scan of someone’s groups might reveal more about a person than they’re happy to admit – that they commit a large part of their week to every franchise of certain American reality shows, or that their stern exterior belies their commitment to affirmations memes and pictures of dogs in onesies… Where else could I consult 124 owners of Italian greyhounds, only two of whom I’ve met, on the healthy bowel habits of a five-month-old puppy? Where else could I give Teresa Giudice’s wedding hair the attention and analysis it deserves? These are conversations I might be reluctant to start with colleagues or casual friends, lest their assessment of me immediately be: ‘She’s basic.’ Group chats are a safe space to indulge those interests. The good ones are, at least.
‘All the good chats – the liveliest ones – have quite a specific theme or a function,’ says Nylander. Other groups she’s in include: ‘Financially Fancy and Free’, committed to being fiscally responsible in 2023; ‘Black Car, Fag, J Sheeky’, named after a much-memed pap-shot of Kate Moss, dedicated to ‘slaggy and salacious gossip, celebrity or otherwise’; and a series of chats set up for work projects.
A person’s groups can be delightfully disparate and wide-ranging. These neatly organised, often entertainingly named chats can also be appealing in a digital landscape that can often feel chaotic. ‘Platforms like WhatsApp give people more control and allow people to manage what is a very complex interaction in a really simple way,’ Dr Meredith says. With group chats, everything is largely in its place, ready for you to jump back in at a time that suits you. More than that, though, it helps people to rally and mobilise at a time when connecting with communities is key.
‘It’s very much about organising for me – a tool,’ says Nate Agbetu, a UK-based creative who has arranged a number of community-based projects using group chats, such as Gaia’s Garden, which regenerated inner-city green spaces with the Mayor of London’s support. ‘I wouldn’t say the group chat is dead, but there’s got to be a really good reason for one to exist. I’ve used them to organise a guerrilla group for putting up posters surrounding elections and for healing groups. I think the ones that revolve around activities are great and stay alive because they connect us IRL.’
WhatsApp – which remains one of the most-used platforms in the world, with over a billion active users – has made major changes to group-chat functions, having recognised just that. The messaging app, owned by Facebook parent company Meta, quadrupled its group-size limit due to popular demand twice last year (from 256 people to 1024) before introducing an even larger Community feature geared to ‘supporting the groups that are part of our daily lives’ – schools, sports clubs, religious congregations, and more. The influence of the group chat is spilling off-screen, impacting both community and culture beyond it.
Amid the organisation, there’s often a happy exchange of playlists and other discussions. It’s not meant to be formal; it’s fun. Which is what makes the group chat an ‘anything goes’ space that can inspire a huge amount of creativity (and, yes, using iMessage’s ‘mark-up’ tool to mock up a Love Island meme counts as creativity, too).
This very article was born out of a WhatsApp group called ‘Park Life’ – a chat that started with the intention of setting up a park reunion for ELLE staffers old and new, but has evolved into a space to talk about anything and everything in culture. But let’s not get it twisted. Beyond the culturally important stuff, the group chat is still a bush network for deliciously despicable rumours and intrigue.
Asked what makes a good chat, a fashion-editor friend who shall remain unnamed replied ‘memes, laughter and GOSSIP’. Her favourite groups? ‘A Love Island-turned-fashion one and another solely dedicated to gossip. Both because they involve gossip. Did I mention gossip? Gossip is key,’ she says. But it’s not always idle gossip. Recently, and without risking libel, I could quickly fact-check rumours that the creative director of a major fashion house was on the out, piecing together scraps from multiple groups featuring a mix of fellow writers and editors, PR people, and members of the design team. One group is entertainingly named ‘Getting Word That…’ with the sole purpose of getting a temperature check on rumours and spreading hot goss.
Does Dr Meredith believe the group chat could ever die? ‘From a psychological perspective, we have a need to belong to groups, and connect through conversation, whether those groups are organised online or offline. So, I find it difficult to imagine that a group chat or a way of organising groups online is going to suddenly disappear,’ she says with certainty. Even post-lockdown, we’re still living atomised lives. The group chat is our watercooler, town square and village hall combined – and we need it now more than ever.
This article originally appeared in the May 2023 issue of ELLE UK.
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