Texting on holidays

It always amuses me greatly to compare the wide range of responses I get when I text out a holiday message to everyone in my phone.

  1. The personal response - they text back a warm message using your name or anecdote, clearly you are in their contacts list

  2. Generic but enthusiastic reply - either they recognize your number, or they are embarrassed not to and covering

  3. Apologetic - they greet you back but make an excuse about a new phone, apologize and ask for your identity

  4. Anything goes - not sure who this is, but happy holiday anyway!

  5. Accusatory - no “thanks but” or “you too but” attempt at niceties. Just a “who is this!?” or “you must have the wrong number”

  6. This number is blocked

Do you all get a similar range of responses, or are your contacts pretty well synced?

Wait, what? You spam out a generic holiday text message to every person in your contacts list? Is this a thing that people do?

The only people I know who do this are the high school kids on my debate team. On any given holiday, I can expect between 20-30, “hApPy H0liD@yZ!!!111!” texts. I can’t say I’ve heard of an adult mass texting their friends, but stranger things have happened.

My reply (if I give any. . . 10 or so in, I usually give up) is usually just a generic, “Thanks! Merry Christmas to you, too.” Or whatever day it is.

My wife does this. A 30yo college educated woman.

I don’t get it either.

Everyone in my phone that’s listed as a cell and a personal contact, yes. I get them too and am glad to.

If I get a personal text, I’ll usually reply, but if I get a “spam text” I’ll just ignore it.

I’m having flashbacks to when I first got online in the mid 1990s, had an AOL account and discovered that I could…OMG!..send messages to several people simultaneously! Wow! And, guess what - I am grocery shopping and talking to you ast the same time, no shit!

Now, oh hell no. Not on my phone, not via email, do I ever send shit to everyone in my address book. Mainly because I have a myriad of work or professional-related numbers (or emails) and it would be quite unprofessional (or weird) to send the same message to everyone. If you’re not someone I talk to at least once a month - I don’t care enough about you to send holiday greetings, and I don’t want to get yours either.

The only person I know who still does that is the 80-something mother of a good friend of mine. Bless her heart, she is old and gets a pass for hitting “forward to everyone in my address book” for every cute or inspirational thing she receives. I delete almost all of them on receipt, but she’s a sweet lady and I’d never tell her so.

Huh.

How do you tell the difference?

I have a few adult friends who do that every holiday. Honestly, I just ignore them. If someone sends me a personal text I’ll reply back. If it’s a generic one (and you can tell), I just ignore them.

Could be worse. I get emailed holiday and birthday greetings from Eternal Reefs ™.

My friend started doing this recently. He’s 32 like me but he’s a bit childish (although I don’t really find it childish.)

I didn’t realize that there is an app he can use to send a personalized greeting to everyone in his address book (“Merry Christmas to [FirstName] and all of the [LastName] family!”) until my brother mentioned he got a few from his friends (also 30-somethings).

I’m slightly put off but it’s not because of the mass-ness of it. Back in the old days - like 5 years ago - I would send some via text to a few friends at a time.

What bugs me is that even though my friend calls me JJ and 90% of the people I know call me JJ, he must have me in his address book as Jessica for some reason. So his “personalized” texts are actually quite cold and impersonal sounding since he is addressing them to Jessica as if we were business acquaintances and not pals of 20 years.

Anyway…I don’t respond any more. I figure they are not looking for a response.

I sent out a pleasant Merry Christmas wish to my BBM contacts. It was a nice way to strike up a conversation with some chums from school. My best friend chose to berate me for the gesture, but for the most part it was well recieved!

I (31) send out holiday greetings. I try to personalize them, and I do them one at a time. But they are essentially done en masse.

I started doing this when I lived abroad and had a much smaller peer group celebrating US holidays…it was a nice way to reach out to each other in what is often a lonely time, and getting texts from my far-flung friend brought a smile when we couldn’t be with our families. Now my friends who I was abroad with keep it up, and so do I. It’s not meant to be a big deep personal missive. It’s just a way to say hi to people I may not have seen for a while. This year, I did reconnect with quite a few people this way.

Glad to see I’m not the only one. I have to say, I find the negativity and accusations of “spam” from the “you must send me a hand made card with a personalized message unique to me and me only or else it’s shit” people kind of bizarre.

Especially since, how personalized are real Christmas cards anyway really? It’s still nice to get them if they aren’t from Martha Stewart.

Personally I’m not an all or nothing person. Knowing that an old acquaintance or distant family member still has me in their phone even if our only interaction is an occasional text, still warms my heart.

Someone said that, did they? How odd of them.

I’ve never had phones that allowed for that sort of mass texting. I’m usually limited to maybe 10 people at a time. In order to send a text to every contact that can get texts, I’d have to do maybe 15 batches. Fuck that, I’m lazy. People who I know will appreciate a personal note get one. I don’t care if I get any or no messages wishing me a happy holiday.

Feel free to offer your own interpretation. :wink:

I sent a “Merry Christmas!” mass text to my close friends this year. When I got a response, I followed up on them, though.

You may wish to reflect on these two statements being in the same post.

That said, there is a reason why spammy glurge is all over everywhere, because there are people who enjoy it, and still interpret it as valuable human interaction, at some level. Of course, it doesn’t mean that many/most people find it off putting and annoying.

Myself, I would find it spammy, about on the same level as internet forwarded glurge. Not a crime, but a tad annoying.

I wouldn’t think you a spammer. More of a ‘glurger’!:smiley: