Oof!
How we've squirmed over the last few weeks as the messages in the family WhatsApp chats heated up, the memes were spread and the emojis were fired!
Good wishes to come, videos of babies who can burp the ABC, wise advice, pictures of walks (by far!) and of course countless articles about what you can do where and when.
But nothing, really nothing, was served in these groups as scalding as gags, corona gags, of course.
Johanna Dürrholz
Editor in the “Germany and the World” department.
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Because the family chat is the place for bad humor and outdated internet jokes.
Incidentally, closely followed by the office group chat.
In the Corona period, a phenomenon has become particularly widespread.
The joke that we saw at least two weeks ago on Instagram or TikTok or Twitter or somewhere else and didn't find it funny then appears again, mostly in imitation, in the family chat, for example as a poorly staged video.
The reactions to it are always the same: booming laughter until you cry, i.e. broken laugh emojis with the crocodile tears of laughter that just spurt out on both sides.
What got into our parents?
An example.
A woman, apparently filmed at home in front of a desolate wallpaper, is asked: "You have to be in quarantine for two weeks now, there are two options.
A: You are quarantining with your husband and children.
Or B: ...” And the woman calls out: “B!, B!”.
Muahahahaha, laughter smiley, cover your eyes smiley, grin smiley with Sailor Moon droplets top right, cry smiley, tears of laughter smiley.
Okay, we laughed the first time too.
Only: The gag has been around for years in a similar version.
And during this time you are bombarded with these jokes from all sides so that you just want to crawl into a room that is empty of jokes and air – after all, that works quite well in isolation, by the way.
It's a bit like when our parents suddenly discovered Whatsapp and spammed us with kissing smileys, hearty-eyed emojis and digital glitter dust - and that at a time when we thought it the pinnacle of intellectual serenity, us fight completely emoji-free through Facebook timeline and StudiVZ messages.
We found that embarrassing!
Indecent!
What had gotten into our dear, clever parents that they suddenly acted like that?
In the meantime, the use of emoji has been democratized, so to speak, just like social networks.
In other words, they've gotten older, accessible to the masses.
And we also allow ourselves a certain emoji wear, we're not that young anymore anyway, wink smiley!
Wt?f!?!
Heaven help!
After all: We still have food pictures for us.
The older generation finds it strange that before we eat our beautifully draped pasta with ready-made pesto, we pull out our smartphones to capture this moment of culinary excellence, also for Whatsapp groups, without parents or aunts in it, of course.
But that too will change.
Just as it's no longer just artsy guys presenting analogue photography from remote locations on Instagram, the foodie passion for photography will soon be rampant in family chats.
Soon our parents will probably write to us in Messenger in the same style as the up-and-coming young journalists (Journos!) do on Twitter.
What would a message look like, let's say: from the mother, after one or two years of corona-tested permanent digitization?
"LOL I just cut your dad's main hair myself and imho it looks so n1 lmao.
ok is quite an alman move but tbh: hairdresser fully overrated!” Wt?f!?!
Heaven help!
Now that all sounds like a lot of nagging (puke smiley).
And the environmental sow activists (pig snout smiley) are probably already lurking behind the next digital corner.
But despite all the whining: We are also a little happy about the cozy jokes in the family groups.
In the meantime, we even collect harmless gags in other groups for the respective family groups.
A good Easter joke for the family group, for example: “Where do rabbits live?
In the Hoppel half of the house!” A friend got it from a mother, we sent it on to the relevant family chats, and lo and behold: LOL, ROFL, LMAO, broken salmon smiley!
And here?
A real, fat, life-size smiley spread across the analogue face - we had just made our family laugh.
Beautiful or?
If you don't see each other much and miss laughing together, a virtual tear-dropping laugh is the direct route to the red pulsating heart emoji.