A woman was not prepared for her dad’s scathing review of the family WhatsApp group, and his attempt at escaping it has gone viral.
Inés Rae, a 22-year-old singer from the south coast of England, posted a clip on TikTok (@inesraemusic) having a conversation with her Generation X dad as he gives his reasons for wanting out.
According to Inés Rae, her 52-year-old dad, whom she referred to as “Daddy Rae,” has never been a fan of technology.
@inesraemusic
“He hates his phone he doesn’t know how to use it, and he never has,” she told Newsweek. “He doesn’t like having all the notifications come up because it confuses him. He would prefer everyone to talk to each other in person.”
In the clip, Daddy Rae explained to his daughter that the deluge of notifications from the family WhatsApp group—which includes his daughter, her two others and their mom—makes him feel physically sick.
After being told that he couldn’t leave the chat by his daughter, the 52-year-old said that he is also stuck in a lot of other group chats.
“I’d like everyone being friends together, but I don’t know if the messages are for me. With a normal, like, talking thing, you know, that they’re talking to you, but with the group chat; how do you know it’s for you?” the dad said in the clip.
The hilarious exchange continued as he struggled to understand message reactions, saying that he had even called people to clarify why they hadn’t written anything, only to learn that they had simply “liked” a message.
“There [are] too many ways to be involved. There’s the email, there’s the group chat, there’s the 1-to-1 chat, WhatsApp does the iPhone cloud thing. There [are] millions; it takes me about an hour to check all the messages,” Daddy Rae told his daughter.
Inés Rae, who frequently posts videos of her dad on social media, told Newsweek that he is full of life.
In 2021, he had life-changing surgery. “He supports my music career so well, and I wrote a song about his heart transplant called ‘Someone Else’s Heart’,” she said.
The clip went viral on Inés Rae’s page, amassing 266,000 views and counting. Hundreds of viewers could relate to the struggle to keep up with messaging admin.
“It really does get too much sometimes,” one user wrote.
“My dad left ours as hated it going off all the time,” another posted.
A third user suggested showing him the mute button.
“Everyone loves Daddy Rae; the videos with him are super popular,” Inés Rae said. “The video has gone viral, and everyone seems to relate. They all want to leave their group chats.”