It is with no sadness and no surprise whatsoever that we announce the death of “Lads Holiday 2021 🌴”, later renamed “Lads Holiday 2022 (for real)”, later renamed “Birthdays etc.”
It died on a Wednesday afternoon, alone, beside a meme nobody reacted to. Two people saw it. Both left it on read.
Early Life
The chat was born in a pub, when someone said “I’ll make a group,” and astonishingly did. In its first week it received 1,400 messages, four of which were about the actual holiday. The holiday never happened. The deposit did.
It was a gifted child. It could produce forty notifications in a single work meeting. It hosted voice notes nobody finished. It invented six inside jokes nobody can now explain, because the people who found them funny no longer exist. They were replaced by tired adults with the same names.
Later Years
Members got jobs, mortgages, bad backs and a strong preference for being asleep by ten. Messages grew longer and rarer, like letters from a war nobody was winning.
Its final years were spent saying “happy birthday mate 🎉” once per member per year, a ritual performed with all the warmth of a direct debit.
Nobody killed the group chat. Everyone just assumed somebody else would feed it.
Cause of Death
The coroner recorded “natural causes,” specifically five adults each thinking, “I’ll reply properly later.” Later is a very busy place. Nobody comes back from later. Later is where friendships go to be forgotten.
It Is Survived By
- One pinned message about a deposit that will never be paid back.
- Seventeen photos of the same sunset, unviewed since.
- A poll titled “Pub Friday?” with zero votes and one “maybe”.
- Five people who once loved each other and now share only a mutual reluctance to leave the group first.
In Lieu of Flowers
The family asks that you send one stupid message into a chat that has gone quiet. A photo of a weird dog. A “remember when.” It will get one thumbs-up, three days later.
Group chats are not asleep. They are dead. The next person to post in this one will be announcing the first funeral. That one, everyone will reply to.