Like Thirsty Thursday and Sunday Funday, the group text has become a mandatory social fixture in our society that you definitely participate in unless you’ve never interacted with another human being or you don’t have unlimited texting (WTF). It’s the reason your phone’s battery is always at less than 20 percent. It’s the reason why you’re woken up at 3 a.m. every night you choose to stay in. But you still fucking love it because there’s no sweeter feeling than getting out of barre class to sixty-eight text messages that aren’t from your mom. You don’t do it for the magical feeling you get when your phone vibrates, lights up, and chimes. You do it for the love, honor, and pride of your crew. Once you’re in the group text, you’re in the group text until the day you die. Your significant other will just have to learn to deal.
1. The GIF Guru
This is the friend who texts in GIFs and memes as if no one else follows the Fat Jewish and Fuck Jerry on Instagram. She only questions the group on whether or not they watched the Vine video she just sent, and while you DGAF about Vine, and you think half the YouTube videos she sends are tired, you respect her on-point pop culture knowledge and can always count on her to quote the right movie at the right time. You’re my boy, Blue.
Group Role: Dad jokes, which she thinks are just jokes.
IRL: At parties, she’ll reference a meme, GIF, Vine, or YouTube video she sent to the group text, making it seem like a hilarious, highly exclusive inside joke, and inside jokes are awesome.
2. The Karen
She mainly texts random noises (ugh, haha, LOL, ew) and you’re unsure if she actually knows how to form intelligent thoughts or even a decently structured sentence. She’ll randomly go MIA and then jump into the conversation when you’re discussing stupid shit. She’ll make comments or ask questions about topics that are no longer relevant, and she never contributes when important matters need to be sorted out. This person is iceberg lettuce. She adds no substance, but she remains a pivotal asset and a staple of the group.
Group Role: Being drama-free and adored by all.
IRL: Laughing at all your jokes without taking the spotlight.
3. The Random
No one is really sure how or why this person is in the group text. At one point, this person was probably sleeping with someone in the group, and the group was too lazy to start a new thread once it faded. Despite having no real connection to the group and never being invited to hang out in real life, this person stays active in the conversation, clinging on for dear life. Everything this person says is annoying. Actually, most of the time, he or she is pretty funny (or at least not not funny) but no one will ever admit it. This person is a yellow Starburst: secretly enjoyed, publicly hated.
Group Role: Agreeing with the majority in group text debates.
IRL: This person isn’t there. He or she texted the group asking about the game plan and no one responded.
4. The Hot Mess
This is the friend you can’t believe has lived this long. You don’t expect to hear from her until 3 p.m. on weekends because if her phone isn’t lost or dead, she hasn’t even woken up yet. She typically texts the group screenshots of her recent calls, credit card purchases, Tinder convos, and so on, and she asks for help piecing together WTF happened last night. While unreliable, her texts are highly anticipated because the stories are guaranteed to be fucking hilarious. No one can compete with her level of insanity.
Group Role: Making you feel better about your life choices.
IRL: Mostly likely to have been last seen more than an hour ago taking Fireball shots with randos.
5. The Point Person
This is the friend who started the group text. She’s the glue that holds the group together. She texts the group every boring detail of her day and you tolerate it not because you care, but because she is nice and has too much time on her hands. You’re also pretty sure she gets off to the chime of an incoming text and suffers an obsessive-compulsive need to always be on her phone. This person is the point of contact among various crews, so she always knows what is going down and puts together a solid game plan for the night.
Group Role: Being that person you text if you’re ever in an awkward situation and you don’t know what to do with your hands. You know she’ll text back promptly, 24/7.
IRL: Sitting next to an outlet charging her phone.
6. The Socialite
Hilarious without trying too hard, she has a reputation for having the looks, charm, and swag of JFK, which heightens your social status by association. Her name is the first one you drop when people ask who you’re texting. She loves being the big fish in a small pond, and she doesn’t strive for much else in life. Your parents openly hate her. So does anyone who doesn’t understand sarcasm. Her number is probably in the triple digits despite being in a LTR, and she’ll no doubt one-up any story about your new hookup with the story of the time she hooked up with the same person years ago.
Group Role: Drawing on people who pass out and sending pictures to the group.
IRL: Leading a group chant while posted up at the hometown bar.
7. The Time-Hopper
She’s the “remember when” person. You’ve known this person since you were ten, and although she grew up to be a complete and total Buzz Killington, you can’t imagine your life without her. (Plus, your parents would be mad if you stopped hanging out with her and she always offers to pay for shit.) The time-hopper is always way too into the ideas and plans thrown out by the point person, who prays that she is not the first to respond. The minute she’s on board — and she is always on fucking board — there’s a high chance everyone else jumps ship.
Group Role: Sending timehops and #TBTs.
IRL: Putting on Ja Rule’s Pandora station or ’80s throwbacks.
8. The Overachiever
This is the friend who went to an elite out-of-state college and landed some big-time job after graduation, which she humble brags about all the effing time. She always complains about the group constantly blowing up her phone with comments like, “Some of us have work to do.” However, she never takes more than two minutes to respond to a G-chat unless she’s at lunch with a client “closing deals,” because “somebody has to do it.” When discussing the night’s game plan, she always makes a point of saying she has to work late because “money never sleeps,” and she spends Sunday Funday sending emails on her work phone in an attempt to convince people that she’s an asset to the company. She calls you immature, but she chooses to spend a day off playing Edward 40-Hands. You love the hypocrisy.
Group Role: Going “hard” one night a month, blacking out by 10 p.m., buying the entire bar rounds of $6 Jell-O shots, and waking up with her hand stuck in a Pringles can and a $200 Uber charge.
IRL: You use her for a weekend trip to a major city and stay at her dope apartment. She’ll take you to some EDM brunch with her pretentious but attractive friends, where you’ll spend too much money and not even get that drunk. You’ll have sick Instagrams though, so it’ll be totally worth it.
9. The Screenshot Shit-Talker
She has the remarkable ability to make any conversation about herself, and if she isn’t doing that, she’s sending screenshots of outsiders she snapped from Insta and Facebook to talk shit. The only reason you’re friends with this person is because you’re afraid not to be friends with this person.
Group Role: Having your fucking back no matter what.
IRL: Pulling you aside to bitch about a stranger who just walked into the bar, because said stranger was once in the background of a picture her ex was tagged in.
10. The Hipster
The hipster never fully vibed with the group. When she went on a mission trip and “found herself,” she came back with a completely different crew. It made more sense, but she can’t seem to let go. She loves the group chat because it provides her with the stupid jokes and petty insults that her new friends just don’t get.
Group Role: Planning the group’s trip to Coachella, which she usually wouldn’t fuck with because it’s way too mainstream, but she agreed because she knows the group trip is in no way for the music.
IRL: At a house concert in a basement cellar in a corner of a renovated dungeon in an up-and-coming Bushwick alley beneath a gluten-free cupcake shop next to a bodega that sells cheap American Spirits. She invited you, but only because she knew you’d decline..
Nice Move420
Respond
Mel and Eva
Eva and Mel are 20-something women living in NYC - they once sought Fall Boyfriends on Craigslist, they remain single. Their interests include drinking, texting, brunching, and world politics. The duo write and perform comedy together online and IRL.
@evamcenrue
@melowens 
