Opinion
The family WhatsApp group is the strangest place on the internet
Thomas Mitchell
Culture reporterAs predictable as the rising sun, my father starts each day by sending a good morning message to the family WhatsApp group. Less predictable is what he’s actually trying to say. Despite being relatively intelligent, he is allergic to punctuation. So, I spend my first waking moments slowly deciphering his rambling stream of consciousness.
“Good morning how r my children today would anyone like to meet for coffee I hope we are all feeling well please give me a call later on today ok thank you”
The family WhatsApp group is a real-time reminder that you can’t pick your family, but you can choose to mute them. Credit: Marija Ercegovac
Inevitably, someone will reply, usually my sister because she’s the nicest, and so begins a merry-go-round of “Good Mornings!” This pattern is repeated in the group with my mum (divorced parent problems) and then again in my wife’s family group.
They’re less insane than my family, so the exchanges are more wholesome.
Typically, it begins with a photo of my father-in-law on his morning walk. A shot-from-below Boomer selfie, usually featuring a body of water in the background and accompanied by a bit of vague motivational chat: “Great day out there, guys! Let’s have a good one.”
By the time I’ve finished wishing everyone in my life a good morning, it’s 8:30 am, and I’ve only got a few hours until my father asks what we’re all having for lunch.
With 12 million monthly users, WhatsApp is among the most popular apps in Australia, and the byproduct of that is a nation held hostage by our many groups.
Like most people, I am running multiple threads, each serving a different purpose.
The top-tier one comprises close friends and offers a safe space for us to joke, complain about our other friends and share funny internet content that distracts us from the crippling reality of our lives.
Then you have the adjacent family groups composed of siblings or, in some cases, siblings plus partners. These are mainly reserved to screenshot moments when your parents are acting strange in the primary family chat or if they say something unintentionally hilarious. The splinter group is also where things like parental birthday presents and organised, and messages like “Can you please transfer me for mum’s present?” are ignored.
And finally, there are the weird one-off groups with names like “Christmas Plans 2022” or “Laura’s Hens LOL” that burn bright for a bit, then burn out.
But in the hierarchy of WhatsApp chats, the original family thread is in a league of its own, both a blessing and a curse. Only in the family WhatsApp will you tune out for an hour only to tap back in and discover 160 notifications, all of which concern a distant relative’s recent IBS diagnosis.
However, for all the Good Morning messages and mundane updates, being in a group chat with the family provides a platform to have conversations you never imagined possible.
My sister once baked a vegetarian eggplant moussaka and sent a picture of the dish in our thread. My mother replied with a Bitmoji of her riding a giant eggplant - unaware of what it meant.
Yes, that is a Bitmoji of my mother riding a giant eggplant.
Never in my life did I think I’d be explaining to my mother how the internet hijacked a vegetable and made it horny, but there I was.
We are hamstrung by adult life and adult rules in the real world. But in the family WhatsApp, we regress to our most simple dynamic: the overly enthusiastic mother, the annoying youngest child, the organised older sibling and the funny-but-weird dad.
In my wife’s family WhatsApp, everyone plays their role with impressive conviction.
Recently, my father-in-law discovered the decades-old show South Park and has been hammering the chat with clips.
I quite enjoy them, but not as much as I enjoy my mother-in-law’s cheery response to a compilation of Kenny’s most gruesome deaths: “That’s so funny, darling! Hope you’re having a lovely day!”
But the most significant benefit of the WhatsApp family chat is that it keeps us together - sometimes forcibly because that’s one group you really can’t leave. At a time when being busy is our default mode, catching up is hard, but sending out a blast to your nearest and dearest is easy.
On that note, it seemed only fair to give my respective family groups the heads-up that they would be appearing in this column. My father-in-law was over the moon, and my dad sent back a rambling essay I still need to figure out.
As for Mum, she replied with a giant winky face. I’ll have to talk to her about using that one later.
Find more of the author’s work here. Email him at thomas.mitchell@smh.com.au or follow him on Instagram at @thomasalexandermitchell and on Twitter @_thmitchell.
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