Leaving Whattsapp groups

[feralcat]

Apparently Meta are going to make it so people an leave Whattsapp groups ..without that fact being highlighted. Hoorah ! ( but they haven't sorted it out yet. What a surprise)

There's an article in the UK Guardian newspaper about it today. Re how the groups make some people feel, and how leaving at the moment seems too 'obvious' ...and how other members react if you do. They can even add you back in ?

I've said a couple of times I don't like them. And don't want to join in. I think FOO have one on the go atm, but I'm not in it. UnPdM complains about that, as I'm not in the loop ( and presumably therefore antisocial and odd). Whatever.
I tend to think of them as potentially like a dysfunctional system on a screen. They start with a 'purpose' and it's all very nice, but over time the factions and snark creep in. Members even reply for each other ! As the weirdo lost child one I end up getting picked on by the inherently more aggressive members . Like childhood all over again. When I protest , and ultimately leave I get tirades accusing me of e.g. 'spitting the dummy' .

So yes, bring it on. I think you might even have to agree to being added into the group. MC reason to the Borg as to why I couldn't possibly.
Ps it'll be interesting to see how they get on with the actual task in mind, given that the most verbose don't actually do more than promise, whereas I'm (past tense) one of the few who do the doing.

[Cat of the Canals]

I'm so thankful PDmom and PDmil have never figured out this kind of thing, It would absolutely be a never-ending source of supply for them (and drama).

PDmil has tried to get my husband to join in the weekly videochat her in-laws do. She got a resounding, "NOPE." on that one, lol.

[easterncappy]

This would have saved me a lot of trouble a while back.

I had a creepy narcissistic "friend" who was a woman much older than me, who I'd known since I was in high school, and she invited me to a group chat with a bunch of other women... all they did was talk about terrible things like children dying, how they're all victims of conspiracy theories, etc. and I found it just miserable. Truly miserable. Talking to them made me have panic attacks from how obscenely morbid all of their topics of conversation were. I told her I wasn't a fan multiple times.

When I left the group chat, it sent the creepy narcissist lady a notification, and I got a literally 20 paragraph long hate message about how I'm a terrible person because I "don't care what happens to her children" (she was convinced the government was going to put her in a FEMA camp, her husband would get fired, and they'd have to live out of their car because of their political beliefs - years later, none of that ended up happening, to no normal person's surprise) and how all I do is "bog them down with my whiny wah wah fake problems anyway" (I didn't have a place to live that wasn't with my child molester dad which I sometimes talked about). Because she didn't get a reaction from me, she unblocked me to send me another equally long message accusing me and everyone in my life of being terrible people a couple of days later.

I feel like if it didn't announce my departure to all of those mean women, that might have... not happened the way it did. I was close to just fading into obscurity anyway. They made it clear I wasn't allowed to speak about anything but their weird news articles about toddlers having heart attacks, so I was just silent for a couple of days anyway. Messaging apps are not an airport, they don't need to announce my departure. Lol

[Catothecat]

What gets me is when you belong to a social group that has an online presence and they start "breaking out" into these groups in order to "talk more."  Then these groups take over conversations so basically you have to join that group (wherever they are) to find out what's going on.  What ends up happening, however, is that you're inundated day in and day out with trivia and attention seeking behavior and maybe, just maybe, some actual information will come through now and again. 

The attraction such groups have for narcs doesn't even need to be stated.  But on the bright side, you can immediately tell who the narcs are...

[pianissimo]

I experienced some dysfunctional friendships through whatsapp groups. Their start felt like love-bombing. They were named rather ambitiously that signaled strong friendship. I made the best out of those groups, I kept touch. But, they died out as friendships stumbled. It felt like a discard given their initial ambitious name.