SIBUSISO MKWANAZI | Common sense has exited the group chat

99+. That is how many unread WhatsApp messages I have on my phone. Most of them are irritating “forwarded many times” messages on various group chats. Why on earth am I still part of the “surprise bachelor’s party for Rob” group seven years later, while he's moved on to wife number three?

As a lot of other gentle souls can attest, it feels like I am breaking people’s hearts when I exit a group, and the social obligation weighs heavily on me. So I cowardly stay in groups from companies I left pre-Covid; I am an onlooker in chats that were started to predict whether Barack Obama would be the first black president of the US, and whether there would be enough snow at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

I'm part of extended family chats that remind us about birthdays, anniversaries and give gentle nudges to RSVP for divorce parties. These group chats have become as futile as LinkedIn posts where, on a daily basis, someone is “excited to announce a new job” or “happy to share they received a Certificate of Attendance: Monitoring and Evaluation of Paint Drying”.

As you can tell, I'm not the biggest fan of group chats, but I'm excited to announce that there've been times I've found group chats useful.

For some reason, most of us have accidentally sent at least one embarrassing message to a group chat. Remember that one time you sent nudes to your work group by mistake, and Pete from accounts sent you a pic of his junk as a return DM?

And what about that time you thought you were texting your group of close friends about the dream you had about a hot ex, but it turned out to be your church group, and your husband is the group admin? And he's also the preacher. Amen sister!

The great thing about all these embarrassing faux pas is that we've lived to tell the tale, and most were generally harmless. That wasn't the case for some of US President Donald Trump’s top brass.

I can guarantee you that your mom and dad accidentally sexting on the family group — immediately after your cousin informed everyone that Bella had just checked into cat heaven — didn't break the internet like US national security leaders including a journalist on their Signal group chat.

A whole lot more of Trump’s best friends had apparently not realised that Goldberg had been inadvertently added to the group.

As unbelievable as it sounds, earlier this week The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg (who was probably on a smoke break casually going through his Signal messages), was invited by Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser into a chat.

I guess his first thought was: “There's absolutely no way the real Waltz would invite me to a group named Houthi Principals Committee small group”. The first thing Goldberg did was try to identify who else was in the group. Then he proceeded to critique their profile photos. After a few silents chuckles, he realised that the users’ names were a little famous.

Marco Antonio Rubio (secretary of state), JD Vance (vice-president) , Tulsi Gabbard (director of national intelligence), Pete Hegseth (secretary of defence) and a whole lot more of Trump’s best friends had apparently not realised that Goldberg had been inadvertently added to the group.

And who can blame them? We've all been erroneously added at some point to groups like “Tupperware closing down party” and “how to beat arthritis in your retirement”. Mistakes happen.

By the time Goldberg started reading the messages, he realised that the mighty US leaders were making the kind of huge mistake that compromises national security.

The group was set up to chat about how, when and why the US would bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen. As with most group chats that are set up for a surprise, there was major oversharing going on — the kind that occurs in the comfortable space that's created when members are assured that no one could ever get hold of the texts.

Vance dropped a message saying he thought the idea of bombing the rebels was a mistake, directly contradicting his boss’ directive. Then, in true group chat fashion, there were swipes at European leaders, labelling them as pathetic freeloaders.

Plenty more was discussed, including how the bombings would send a message to others that if they messed with the US, its allies and any institutions that benefit America and the world — such as the Suez Canal — all hell would break loose.

What made this group chat the most entertaining of all time was not that the “intelligence” team included a journalist, didn't realise who he was and failed to check his profile pic — they would have immediately seen The Atlantic logo or some similar identification. For me, the kicker was that the content got so steamy for Goldberg that he decided to break their hearts and exit the group.

Well, that and the use of emojis. After media reports came in of the bombings and deaths in Yemen, Waltz responded with three emojis: a fist, an American flag and fire. All of a sudden your grandmother’s laughing emoji on the family chat after she mentioned her dear Bongani had passed on isn't in such bad taste after all.