I awake one morning, a gentle ray of sunshine streaming through the curtains. My bed is warm, I feel cosy and refreshed; maybe I could even enter the library today with a smile on my face. Reaching over to turn on a lamp, I agree to generously grant myself fifteen minutes of screen time before getting out of bed.
And it is there that my bubble of tranquility bursts in a thousand droplets over my head. My phone screen lights up, immediately full of hundreds, if not thousands of aggressively punctuated messages, constantly refreshing themselves with new additions popping up every few seconds.
Ah. It is, but, of course my course group chat.
I’ve always felt that these kinds of interactions should be studied, maybe even taken into consideration when discerning someone’s fundamental personality type. The fact of the matter is, the people on these chats are feral, and they provide fantastic entertainment. I can so vividly see an image of the inevitably four or less active members of a chat at home, furiously typing apoplectic message after apoplectic message in endless expression of their outrage, exclaiming and at some times punching the wall in their absolute liberation.
They are on fire.
They are cutting with their remarks, intensely original trailbladers forging a path towards freedom for not only themselves, but their voiceless classmates too. They are mavericks, speaking out about the world’s injustices, thriving off each others’ equal support and rage. They are prisoners breaking free from their straitjackets, screaming and pounding at the walls in the isolation of their padded cells. They are, let’s face it, in training for Facebook arguments when they reach middle age.
It generally begins with one person timidly expressing their slight displeasure with some aspect of the course. For instance, let’s say it’s Philosophy 1A. Person 1 will say something along the lines of: “anyone else get a kinda low mark in the mid-term? :/” Person 2 might wait a few minutes before sympathetically admitting their own disappointment: “yeah was low-key mad about that”. Person 3 is nodding their head in assent, sat at their desk and also didn’t do as well as they expected. They might add a little spice to this discussion with a: “me2. Rly don’t think they taught us well”. And now Person 4 has logged online, and is rubbing their hands in anticipation, warming up the joints to avoid cramping when they begin – when they embark – on the online discussion of a lifetime.
Persons 5 onwards have not much clue what is about to happen, but Persons 1 to 4 are feeling the itch of rage creeping up on the back of their necks. They feel the need to ramp this up, and fast. Person 4, fingers flying across the keyboard, swoops in with a: “literally. f* them”. And so it ensues, now the floodgates have been opened, with rapid, feverish messages in this public display of outrage, a theatre performance of dialogue between these people showcasing their indignation for the world to see. The discussion begins with mere critique of the mid-term, and quickly escalates to critique of the entire course, personal attacks on tutors, and then, inevitably, critique of the entire world; the authorial wave that pushes these individuals down, constantly, incontrovertibly against them. Mis-learnt philosophical theories are thrown about and discarded in corners of the chat, descending into personal moral critique of the tutors’ ethical systems and how obvious it is that they are self-interested swine.
The rest of the group sits and watches in equal horror and glee, unable to tear their eyes from the constant pinging of their phones. There is a fascinating sense of solidarity in this online aggression; in the idea of a group of “agony aunts” shouting into an echo chamber where they will always find validation. It seems to be specifically unique to the student atmosphere, but the real question is: what will these group chat warriors do next?
“WhatsApp App – Zoom” by Christoph Scholz is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.