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Forget other social media applications. WhatsApp seems to be the in thing. Most of us are now so hooked on WhatsApp, we can’t imagine how boring our lives would be without it.
The beauty about WhatsApp is that, unlike other social media applications, it allows instant sharing of photos, videos, free messaging and video calls.
Besides personal chats, the app allows group chats, which have become the bane of many users.
So popular are WhatsApp groups that most users belong to three or four groups. But it’s in these WhatsApp group where crazy characters reside.
1. Duo who use group for personal chats
These buggers use the group chat to converse with only one other. They get into a back and forth, long-winded conversation on a matter they should have talked about privately. Such types will start a post-mortem, explaining how ‘lit’ an event they both attended was.
Others will plan a night out, just for the two of them in a group chat, as if it concerns the rest! The conversation will go on and on, annoying other members who were not involved and may not be interested at all, until the administrator reads them the riot act.
2. Irritating bores who post irrelevant content
You want to talk about house girls, watchmen, mechanics or even intimate, political matters like ‘Luhya unity’? Or even rare sports like sex? Well, be advised, staff WhatsApp group is not the place for such conversations.
People could be talking about serious stuff, only for such scoundrels to interrupt with unrelated matters, leaving everyone pissed off. Mostly, it is usually a long fake news post! Or a song dedication to members.
“I dedicate this ballad to Ndugu Nzau,” he will scribble. Never mind Nzau could be leading an intense debate on the country’s economy!
The group could be exclusively for work-related purpose, but trust a Kenyan to start posting ads for plots, cars and others, soliciting for customers.
Despite their indiscretions, such members take it personally when they are removed by admins. Take the case of India, for instance, where a group admin was reported to have been trailed and clobbered silly to the point of getting admitted in hospital by two men he removed from a work WhatsApp group for posting dirty content, even after being warned several times.
3. Team Kusoma corner members who could be spies
Even with a court order, you won’t get these types contributing to conversations in the group. They only read. Good people, there is nothing creepier than belonging to a WhatsApp group where you only lurk in the background, reading other people’s contributions without saying nothing.
You see those screenshots that leak from that group and find their way to bloggers? You are the number one suspect!
If you are one such person, you are the reason members form breakaway group with all the members except yourself. So when you realise that the frequency with which people share material in your group has drastically reduced, don’t imagine that guys have become too busy.
Thing is, they have formed a replica group to avoid creeps like you.
4. Shenzi admins who add you in groups without consultations
We have admins who drag you in their group without prior requests. We all have been added to strange WhatsApp groups like one for bird-watching, one for a long-lost friend’s wedding fundraiser, for a cattle dip construction in your village, or raising funds to buy your local church a trumpet!
Even when you leave such groups in the dead of the night, hoping early morning chats will hide your departure from the admin, the relentless dude — of course, without consultation — drags you back into the darn place! This can go on and on, until you communicate your displeasure.
5. Chief spammer who floods group with rubbish
We have spammers who seem to believe that they must send something in the WhatsApp groups they belong after every minute. It could be a clip on two mating monkeys, a cock fight, or a ‘pumbavu’ meme on anything under the sun.
Anything such miscreants come cross elsewhere, they dump it in the group! As someone with little understanding of your WhatsApp settings, your bundles end up being used on automatically downloading all manner of rubbish memes and saving them in your gallery.
Look, a mobile phone is a refuge and heaven of sorts to many people. This is where they seek solace from their daily hustle and bustles. It is, therefore, annoying to flood people’s galleries with unsolicited useless forwards, photos and video clips, as if memory cards are not messy already.
6. The ever itching, loudmouth replier-in-chief
This type of spammer has a reply to virtually everything posted in the group. Someone could be on a night out, sending all manner of pics of his or her nocturnal exploits. But because the replier-in-chief was asleep, he will plough through all the 547 chats two days later, firing off replies, as if his life depends on it.
It could be women in the group gossiping about nails, hair or matters fashion and design, but trust the male replier to have something to say. Ndugu, can’t you get a life?
What’s more, such fellows criticise everyone and everything. They will rant about the boss, the tea girl, the watchmen and government. By end of the day, the chatter box will have complained about a long queue she was on at a local bank, how pathetic our education system is and everything else on this planet.
7. Drama queen who always ‘left’ and returns.
Such characters like attacking the group admin, telling him how pathetic the group has become.
“I thought were professionals but admin has watered down the group buy allowing jokers to infiltrate this space,” they will whine before ‘lefting’, only to sheepishly return three days later.
They have people they don’t like in the group and are always the first to comment and scoff when such persons post something.
8. Group informer who is on top of news
This character is responsible for all the news and gossip in the group. He seems to know all latest scandals. Each time there is a scandalous piece of information forwarded in the group, he has to be tagged and asked to confirm.
“The government plans to postpone Christmas, following plans by Al-Shabaab to scuttle the celebrations! John please confirm,” a member will ask him.
9. The therapist cum expert with all the solutions
Each time a matter is posted, there is a member who masquerades as an expert even on matters he has no clue about. These characters are many things rolled up in one. They are relationship experts, constitutional lawyers, life coaches, experts on fish farming, chefs, fashion gurus and all.
They know the breakfast Raila Odinga took the day he returned from the US. They have tips for group members on how to sire twins! They know the best witchdoctor in town and how much you have to part with for such services!
10. Mr Bundi who is ever online 24/7
Such characters are ever present online. You wake up in the dead of the night and dip a toe in the group out of curiosity, Mr Bundi is much awake like an owl! It’s not clearly know whether, like Mr Hyena, Bundi chases skirts.
One is, however, left wondering when do these people work, sleep or do other things. Do they have a life, besides WhatsApp? Even as you read and giggle, the million dollar question is, could you be the annoying character in the WhatsApp groups you belong to?
