WTF: Whatsapp in The Family
An anonymous reader of this blog sent me this note:
Many of the annoying WTF moments in life in recent times have been WTF (Whatsapp in The Family) moments, causing serious stress in life. And casual discussions with friends reveal that I am not alone.
In fact, I seem to be lucky to be part of only a few such WTF groups. There are people who have been added as part of groups that contain first cousins of maternal lineage, first cousins of paternal lineage, (OK till here), second cousins of maternal lineage, second cousins of paternal lineage and worse, groups for first/second cousins from grand-maternal/grand-paternal lineages and so on.
This, at a time the world is considering even husband and wife living in one house as ‘Joint Family’. We are talking about the descendants of the second cousins of the paternal great grand father to be ‘Family’. Sigh. At last count, I only know 4% of people in such groups well enough; 10% that I have met a few times and only 28% that I have ever met at all.
Recently, when a friend left his phone with me for a few minutes, I found a message from ‘Chakku Kollu Paatti Second Cousins Clan’ or some such thing (Kollu paatti = Great grand mother). I promptly shared some pro-Trump messages and also asking for suggestions on how India should teach a lesson to Pakistan, a la Israel. Replies started pouring. When my friend reached to it later, he would not even have realized that it was he who started it.
Mr. Koum, you may feel very proud about how you have made such great UX that it is very easy to be part of Whatsapp and how any one can add any one to a Group. Do you have any clue how difficult you have made life for several people? Side effects, Sir, Side effects. You should consider that too when you design something like this.
Oh well, you tell “Mute” the group you do not like. Well & Good. I did that. And even disabled notifications. That is, enabled “Do not show notifications”. To be fair, you do not show me notifications in the Notifications bar (btw, your Mac app does it even for muted groups!). But you still show a number (of unread messages) against such groups when I open Whatsapp for other messages.
But, what if I have OCD and want to ‘clear’ the numbers wherever I see them?
You tell me that I should consult a psychiatrist and get myself cured? Oh well, I just did that & got over my FOMO on my Twitter / Facebook feeds and try to treat them as ‘laminar flows’. I do not really have a FOMO anything on WTF groups. But the number SHOULD be cleared. No? I should have not have this expectation too? Am I looking for too much legibility in life?
Oh yes, you now ask me to LEAVE such groups, don’t you? No Sir, no. That is not how it works. When you already are almost an outcast and are considered to be acting too pricey to not be attending all & sundry weddings in the family, this would become the final nail in the coffin. Your parents will be blamed for having brought you up in such a fashion that they would have to disown you. Who wants to be disowned by parents for this reason?
Now, as a good product manager trying to understand his users, you ask WHY I want to leave such loving groups and what sort of messages appear here. Right? Yes, here is a sample:
Photos of irrelevant stuff/people - like ‘xyz getting ready to school’ - no xyz is not going to school for the first time. It is just that her mother found it cute that day (and it happens every day)
Forwards of Messages from you - Yes Mr. Koum - You, on sharing some message to others so that you do not start charging $10 from me from next year
Good Morning / Good Night messages from people who I have known to be grumpy always. Where did this polite behavior come from? (Oh wait, you may start thinking this is a benefit)
Need for blood / Someone missing. And there are indeed heart warming stories of how they actually help. (Wait, am I listing benefits here? Time to change tack, seriously)
Birthday wishes. See, you allow some 256 people in the group and they are usually full, at least 200+ people are there. There are only 365 days in a year. So odds are that there are at least 5 days in the week when someone has his/her birthday. Lo & behold, someone would immediately change the Group name, Group icon and so on (where do they get time for this, seriously? this job is not done by the old people in the group, mind you!) right in the morning that you do not know what struck you. A barrage of messages from everyone in the group wishing that person a great year ahead. Your carefully built habit to ignore unread messages of certain groups (using visual cues of group icon & name) goes bust and you got to learn again till the next person’s birthday happens (usually the next day!). More than anything, you will dread your birthday - not (only) because all & sundry would wish you - but because the worst photograph of yours will be picked to be the Group icon for the day!
Stupid jokes of all kinds, the sexist ones forming the majority. You have no clue how many people who I had a bit of respect for (yes, I do respect some people.. well I try to, really..) have lost that status because of some stupid Whatsapp forward they did.
Puzzles which only ‘Genius’es can answer.
How to get rid of mosquitoes without a repellant
Various health tips right from itching in hair to postures at desk to what not
Some phone numbers of Railways, Police, Army etc. to be auto-saved in my phone book for which I should thank the Railways Minister / Prime Minister for the ‘Technology’ behind it. Really.
Comparisons on Mahabharata and today’s political class (praising the current Prime Minister of course)
Nostradamus predictions - this has been following me right from the days of Email Forwards to SMS to now Whatsapp!
And the mundane smileys and replies of people to such messages - the goal being, the smiley should be as irrelevant to the already irrelevant message. Goes meta, I tell you.
Speaking of smileys, the world may be confused if it is a prayer or a high five. We have concluded it is the Namaskarams/Vanakkams.
This is just a sample, Mr. Koum. And this is only for today morning! I have received a total of 324 messages in just the first 5 hours of the day. And the retired uncles of the Group are not yet in full form. They would come to that in the afternoon and I believe this would cross 1000 when end of the day is reached.
You may gloat about the billions of messages you send more than the telecom operators. But sometimes, think of us, the users too! There was no Family SMS Groups, you know?
Now those were a taste of the messages for you. There are other sundry issues around some uncles not feeling respected enough, people feeling bad about not being admin and what not. Let us not even get there!
When you do your next product features brainstorming, seriously consider doing something about WTF groups. You seem to have a Slack envy with @Replies within groups. What next, Channels? No, we need none of those. Whatever you give, we will find a way to annoy people with that.
Just consider these: Allow me to be part of a group but still get no notifications whatsoever, not even that number of unread messages. Instead of @ to specifically call out people, allow me to specifically @ people whose messages I want to read. And ways to easily search it. It would help me to quickly reach to the message the next time when my parents ask me if I saw a particular health tip they had posted. (Yes, they call it ‘posting’ - not sending/sharing etc. Damn those writers who spend hours together to write original articles with 1000+ words - thinking it is humor - and ‘post’).
I hear rumors that the primary persona for Google Allo is the WTF Group orphan like me. And Google Assistant is being trained to be smart enough to be able to read & reply to all messages there. First productive use of all those machine learning AI stuff I say. Wait, is Allo anyway not likely to be a ghost town, like Wave, Buzz and Plus before it?
Like any low-maintenance employee at an office, I try to provide solutions. Not just show up with problems. So, as a low maintenance blogger, dear Mr. Koum, if you ever get caught in a WTF group , here is the trick to leave:
Keep changing your phone number a couple of times every few days. Slowly, extend the gap between leaving & joining back. After several days, leave the group to not join back at all. People would be confused if you are there or not. Actually it does not matter to them.
If it really matters and they call you back so lovingly, then…. don’t be a d**k. No no, I am going to say that you be part of it. You are really part of some psychopathic group so better get some plastic surgery done, change your gender, get a new identity and start living in another planet.
Talk to Mr. Musk - When a proper study of his unstated needs is done, I suspect his motive to colonize Mars is because of some WTF group.
PS:: To all my family members that are reading this, hehe, you know... this is all a joke... you know...! Did you read the disclaimer in the first line of this post?