For those who don’t know:

Texts from iPhone to iPhone appear as blue bubbles, while texts from Android users appear as green.

For many in the US who still use SMS to communicate, the blue/green bubble divide is a huge source of social conflict.

What’s your version of “If everyone knew this was a thing in my country, they’d think it was silly”?

    • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.worldEnglish
      151·
      1 day ago

      You probably don’t interact with a lot of teens then. It’s pretty common in high schools and college campuses. I was told a decade ago that my green bubbles were probably why women stopped texting me after I got their number off okcupid

      • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
        14·
        1 day ago

        If someone is turning you down because of some stupid Apple-manufactured social status, you deserve better than them

        //

        Fwiw, my partner and I met on OkC 5 years ago. It used to be so much better. I got really high one day and answered like a thousand questions, which got me really accurate match percentages. Shame it’s trash now.

        • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          1 day ago

          Oh, OKC used to rock a decade ago. Before they started the monitization efforts they had over a thousand questions that you could pre-sort matches based off of their importance to both of you. There wasn’t swiping, you just actually looked at profiles. It really rewarded writing good profiles which I happen to do well

        • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.worldEnglish
          61·
          1 day ago

          It was, I got laid plenty in college. I meant I would get a woman’s number, text her, then she would give 2/3 responses and disappear. It stopped almost entirely when I switched to asking for Snapchat instead

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 day ago

      As someone with basic knowledge of what it’s doing, I find it important to distinguish encrypted from unencrypted communications

    • underline960@sh.itjust.worksOP
      41·
      1 day ago

      Blue Bubbles vs Green Bubbles: Explained!

      The “Blue” vs. “Green” Bubble War is Insane.

      Why Apple’s iMessage Is Winning: Teens Dread the Green Text Bubble

      https://archive.ph/u2GXB

      Grace Fang, 20-years-old, said she too saw such social dynamics among her peers at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. “I’ve had people with Androids apologize that they have Androids and don’t have iMessage,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s Apple propaganda or just like a tribal in-group versus out-group thing going on, but people don’t seem to like green text bubbles that much and seem to have this visceral negative reaction to it.” Ms. Fang added that she finds the hubbub silly and that she prefers to avoid texting all together.

      ‘I’ve had people with Androids apologize that they have Androids and don’t have iMessage,” said Grace Fang.

      Jocelyn Maher, a 24-year-old master’s student in upstate New York, said her friends and younger sister have mocked her for exchanging texts with potential paramours using Android phones. “I was like, Oh my gosh, his texts are green,’ and my sister literally went, Ew that’s gross,’” Ms. Maher said.

      She noted that she once successfully persuaded a boyfriend to switch to an iPhone after some gentle badgering. Their relationship didn’t last.

      Such interactions have made fertile ground for memes on social media. During the pandemic, Jeremy Cangiano, who just finished up his MBA at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, dealt with his boredom on TikTok, quickly noticing that blue-bubble-green-bubble memes were popular among young people. He tried to cash in on it last year by selling his own merchandise that touted, “Never Date a Green Texter.”

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
        10·
        1 day ago

        I’ve seen so many articles n this but still have a problem believing it’s real. I still think it’s a made up fad by journalists and no one really cares. That would be silly.

        When I asked my teens the answer was “no one uses iMessages and that’s not relevant on Insta”

        • underline960@sh.itjust.worksOP
          10·
          1 day ago

          You asked a legitimate question, and I provided three sources describing the phenomenon.

          Just because you haven’t experienced it personally (or met people who have) doesn’t mean it’s not real, either.

          Plenty of people haven’t met a gay or trans person in their life, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist or that issues they face should be dismissed out of hand.

          Dismissing the question doesn’t add to the conversation. If you don’t want to engage with the question, that’s fine. Don’t comment. Just downvote and move on.