IT’S 5am and my phone is lighting up with endless incoming messages.
WhatsApp indicates I’m sitting at 66 messages and counting.
Has somebody died? Has war been declared? Have I somehow won the Lotto without even entering – even though I always mean to?
No. It’s a family WhatsApp group. And it’s some second cousin twice removed’s birthday.
The digital revolution has brought with it so many great things. I can get drunk and buy matching family unicorn onesies at 1am, I can keep my children entertained by streaming non-stop episodes of some British pig and her family (Peppa Pig…not The Crown), and I can earn an almost liveable wage sitting in my pyjamas and writing absolutely meaningless nonsense without ever having to talk to colleagues ever again. Heaven!
But with every great revolution, there is a downside.
The Russian revolution brought socialism. The French revolution never got rid of the French. And the Fourth Industrial Revolution brought forth family WhatsApp groups.
The thing about these groups, is how you get caught. There’s always some event – a wedding, funeral or divorce – and you have to be involved in the planning of the family lunch gathering (ultimately ending in a drunken brawl between gran and wheelchair Larry).
Then somehow, insidiously, the group name has changed to ‘The Henderson Family’. And you’re trapped.
Then it starts with the sharing of baby’s photos. People who should’ve been paid not to procreate feel the need to share pictures of their miniature trolls with the now 40-member WhatsApp group.
Not to be outdone, the childless among the group also want to seem relevant buy uploading pictures of their pitbulls in onesies (also been doing drunk online shopping I see).
Somehow one family group isn’t enough. There is the big group. Then there’s a group with mom and dad. Then mom, dad and siblings. Then just the siblings. Then just the siblings you actually like. And you – inevitably – send an inappropriate meme about Beavers to the whole group and are torn between deleting it and just letting it sit there awkwardly. Like the boyfriend who was invited to the group but is now an ex. Awkward.
And then there’s the endless birthday wishes. And you’re caught, because in reality you don’t care whether Jenny has a great birthday, but now you’re forced to engage against your better judgement.
And don’t get me started on the 10-year-old Joburg relative who now has a smartphone a lot smarter than she is.
And she feels the need to share…every…single…thought… on a separate message.
I want to start a fund-raising initiative to pay the first IT nerd I can find who is willing to hack the WhatsApp platform, and make it possible to exit a WhatsApp group…without everyone knowing it.
I think, conservatively speaking, I’ll be able to raise an easy 10 million rand or bitcoins or whatever those IT nerds use, within the first minute of establishing my ‘Easy Way Exit’ charity.
Better yet, I’ll make it a WhatsApp group.
