The best two hours of my life
When WhatsApp went down worldwide, finally there was peace on Earth, writes
On Tuesday morning, for less than two hours, the UN and beauty pageant contestants finally got what they’ve been asking for: world peace. WhatsApp experienced a technical glitch — twice — leading to all its services being down. What made the interruption so significant is that it was worldwide.
After restarting my phone, checking the Wi-Fi router and blaming load-shedding, I then did what I should have done in the first place: I asked my wife. While she was at the hair salon, I naively sent her an SMS saying that something was wrong with my WhatsApp. She chose her words carefully in her reply to ensure I didn’t feel like an idiot: “It’s not you, it’s them.”
WhatsApp has become so powerful that it’s used by more than two billion people, so when it’s down, the whole world stops. It’ sa wonderful and affordable way of communicating and has virtually replaced phone calls, e-mails and other ways to get a message across.
At the same time, it can be a lot.
Thanks to WhatsApp group chats, my phone is busier than a ’90s ER doctor’s beeper as I get constant updates about my friend’s uncle’s mother’s gogo’s 80th surprise birthday celebrations; an urgent presentation that needs to be put together overnight for some or other board; and our neighbourhood’s safety group complaining about a suspicious BM (black male) circling the block. It turns out I am the black male cycling around the block.
When WhatsApp went down for almost two hours, I had satisfying peace.
Then there are those individuals who seem to have too much time on their hands. Why can’t they watch Netflix and chill, like everyone else? These people have memberships to the Blue party. In this instance that doesn’t refer to the DA.
The Blue party refers to those special ones who lament that someone “blue-ticked” them. If you’re not familiar with this term, it describes when you send a WhatsApp message and someone reads it without replying within one-tenth of a second. They fail to realise that the world does not revolve around their messages, as recipients are often busy with more important activities, such as checking Facebook messages and Instagram stories.
I have a pen pal (on WhatsApp, obviously, as e-mail is so 1999) and we started sharing digital cultural artefacts. But for those two hours of no service, we couldn’t communicate. Theuns van Niekerk, my pen pal, was about to hit the “send” button, with his greatest Afrikaans treffers of all time playlist, when the blackout happened.
For those two hours I was in panic mode, thinking I’d offended him with my earlier message, sharing Soweto Gospel Choir’s first album. He’s an atheist. What was I thinking?
Thankfully, after the blackout, which also affected whites, it turned out Theuns still likes me as I was able to download “Soos Bloed” by his namesake, Theuns Jordaan. What a song.
For two hours, we learnt what peace was, even though it wasn’t voluntary. There were reports on how families opened their mouths and strung a few sentences together for the first time since the last WhatsApp blackout. Apparently, these words were “let’s check Twitter”.
Social media has consumed us so much that when one platform is down, we immediately log on to another one to verify that it isn’t working , which is what happened on Tuesday. For the first time since 1994, black and white Twitter were checking the same hashtag: #whatsappisdown.
Racial tension, gender inequality and sexual preferences were put aside for 120 minutes as we enjoyed manufactured peace. For that moment, we were in unison as we tried to decipher if it was our network providers, load-shedding or if Putin had invaded Wi-Fi routers globally.
Marriages were peaceful as geriatric husbands weren’t able to receive nudes from their first-year side chicks; politicians were not at odds with each other trying to oust another mayor via an unconstitutional vote of no confidence.
So far, those were the best two hours of my life. I could just be.
I didn’t receive “forwarded many times” messages from my aunt trying to convince of me of her pastor’s miraculous oil that will heal me of my cycling addiction; I was free from my German friend’s never-ending beer bratwurst recipes; and, most importantly, I had a genuine reason for not commenting on some people’s WhatsApp status.
WhatsApp has become one of the most powerful ways to communicate, which is commendable, but at some point we all have to agree that your profile photo is a joke, OK?