EXPAT OBSERVATIONS: WHAT'S UP WITH WHATSAPP?
/On the eve of our one-year anniversary of Spanish residency, I thought I'd use the next few posts to reflect on some of the more amusing/bewildering/unique aspects of Spanish/Catalan/Euro life...
In 2014, Facebook paid a cool $19 billion for an app few Americans had ever heard of; the purchase of WhatsApp baffled many, myself included. Billions of dollars for a messaging app...when everybody already texts and emails?
But in true "Zuckerberg knows best" fashion, any lingering doubts about WhatsApp's relevance dissolved the moment we arrived on Spanish soil. The app is absolutely ubiquitous in this Iberian land, and we were immediately schooled on its social importance.
It would be tempting to pigeonhole WhatsApp as an email or text message lookalike, but that would be to overlook some critical differences. Here, WhatsApp functions as a totally distinct means of communication with its own etiquette and usage rules:
- Unlike texting, a rather familiar means of communication typically reserved for people you know, it's totally appropriate to WhatsApp strangers you've never connected with: you can WhatsApp restaurants for reservations, hair salons and doctors offices to make appointments, car dealerships to schedule maintenance, and teachers to schedule meetings. In that sense, it's much like email.
- But unlike email, the pace of conversation is quick. Poorly abbreviated messages are kosher. Excessive emoji usage is encouraged. In that way, it's more like texting.
- But unlike both texting and email, you can also choose to forgo written messages entirely and opt instead for voice memos. Entire conversations are had by exchanging one pre-recorded voice snippet after another. In that sense, it's more like a really bad phone connection with long lags between every spoken sentence.
- And then there are the WhatsApp groups. There are WhatsApp groups for workplace teams and kids' classes, birthday party invitees and music class students. All of them seem to bring out the most...hmm...chatty...sides of people; it's not unusual to have well over 100 texts at the end of a day, often entailing a long string of "LOL" or "jajajaja" or <smiley face> <crying/laughing smiley face> <heart/heart/heart> <kissy smiley face> emojis. In that way, it's more like an AOL chatroom circa 1997.
I'm still getting used to the etiquette; I don't the sound of my own recorded voice, and any hope of workday productivity required that I turn off the group message notifications. But I definitely see the value in keeping people connected in a quick and informal way. The kids' classes have super active, very connected parent groups; it's a nice way to organize on-the-fly playdates or send reminders about the school supplies you were supposed to send in two days ago. And the whole thing has given me a great excuse to become reacquainted with my inner smiley-face-loving tweenage self.