Family text threads are a great way to stay connected with parents, siblings, or in-laws amid the day-to-day grind. Is it your kiddo's first day of kindergarten? Send a photo to the fam! Want to share a quick life update? Message the group chat! For most millennials and Gen-Xers, this only seems natural. But what we sometimes forget in the midst of our lightning-fast text convos is that our Boomer parents are often on the other end of things, completely overwhelmed with all the dings, GIFs, and emojis flying their way.
A woman on Twitter was recently reminded of this when she got a text message from her dad about "the pressure" of keeping up with their family thread. His message is now going viral, and delighting thousands of people all over the world.
The text was shared on Jan. 16 by Twitter user @snakel3t
Now that it's gone viral, the woman behind the handle has been identified as Allison D'Orazio, who still can't get over her dad's hilarious "confession."
"My dad seriously sent this to our family groupchat," she wrote in her tweet caption. "I'm crying."
My dad seriously sent this to our family groupchat im crying pic.twitter.com/em70wVKHti
— snakel3t (@snakel3t) January 17, 2023
"I can’t keep up with the pressure of always having to lol or like or heart everyone’s random thoughts, pics and amusements," the overwhelmed dad shared. "For all future texts: I love them, laugh at them, or like them, unless it’s bad, then I dislike them. In perpetuity. I can’t live with this pressure."
To say the tweet took off would be an understatement
As of Friday morning, it had racked up more than 422,000 likes, 33,000 retweets, and thousands of comments from people who found it to be the most "dad" thing ever.
"Lmao is this a dad thing?" one person asked. "My dad called me to tell me he didn’t like group chats."
"Aww love him!" tweeted someone else. "My late Daddy, god rest his soul, reacted only used the emoji with sunglasses for every message or announcement. Even if it wasn’t appropriate. Cracked me up every time."
Others had nothing but praise for D'Orazio's dad, whose name is Thomas
One person called him a very "wise man," while another hailed him as a "legend and innovator."
"Good man," said someone else. "I don’t bother replying/reacting to family group texts either, lol."
The thing is, Thomas isn't alone in feeling the "pressure" to keep up with super-active group chats.
"Dude, network burnout is a real thing," one person tweeted. "Some humans were never meant to have this much contact this quickly with this many people. I blow off easily 3/4ths of the daily messages I get on various platforms because I just can't stay glued to my phone all day every day."
"That group chat must be active as hell!" wrote someone else. "Bless his heart."
According to D'Orazio, the chat is pretty active
"He’s surrounded by a bunch of extroverted girlies always doing something, and he just loves a simple life," she later tweeted.
In an interview with Today, the 23-year-old explained that the chat only consists of herself, her 19-year-old sister, Alexa, and their mom, Amy. But apparently, it can get pretty chatty.
"I was sending pictures of every single stitch I was doing on a sewing project," she told Today.
In addition, D'Orazio tweeted that her mom is also guilty of blowing up the group chat fairly regularly, sending "random stuff" to the thread all day long.
Clearly, it all got to be too much for their dear old dad
"The three of us are very extroverted and send random stuff all day long," D'Orazio told Today. "He's so kind and engaged with our lives — he's like the perfect human being — and I think it was stressing him out that he can't respond to all the messages."
A few people on Twitter suggested he learn a few canned "dad responses" as coping mechanisms. Things like "lol," "yup," and the thumbs up emoji, which he can use on repeat when all else fails.
But it sounds like Thomas just wants to shut down all of the digital "noise" once and for all.
Unfortunately, that plan may have backfired
In a follow-up tweet, D'Orazio shared that her dad has now been inundated with texts and other messages after going viral.
"My dad called me and said he ironically has a million texts to reply to now!" she tweeted this week.
My dad called me and said he ironically has a million texts to reply to now
— snakel3t (@snakel3t) January 19, 2023
As for the actual family group chat? It remains unclear if the D'Orazio ladies have toned it down at all, but D'Orazio told Today that her dad hasn't left the chat (at least not yet).
