Do not forget: a green bubble on an iPhone is a person

Although iOS and Android devices are more similar than ever, there are some features specific to iPhone users that Android users do not have (or vice versa). The most prevalent of these features is iMessage, the exclusive Apple email app that designates Android users with a green bubble.

Green bubble, you say? If you do not know what I'm talking about, here it is: When iPhone owners use iMessage to communicate with other iPhone owners, their messages are in blue. When an Android user logs on to chat, his message bubbles become green. It's a simple way for iPhone users to know that some iMessage features will not work with this person because they use an Android device.

Although it sounds pretty harmless and even necessary, the "green bubble" feature has taken on a life of its own – and not in a good way. Some iPhone users around the world, but especially in the US, make fun of the green bubbles that appear in their iMessage feed, even creating familiar phrases such as "green texts do not get the texts back."

This attitude may seem childish but harmless at first glance, but is actually a real problem with real consequences. Young Android users, in particular, feel more and more excluded from their group of friends using an iPhone because of this green bubble phenomenon.

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Yes, the dismissal of the green bubble is a real thing

If you are not an iPhone user, it may be the first time you've heard about it. If you're an iPhone user who does not live in the US, you may not have heard of it, because platform-independent messaging apps are much more popular in the rest of the world (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, etc.). .)

Let me assure you that some iPhone users dismissing outright the sight of a green bubble is not a joke.

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Take this recent article from Cosmopolitan with the headline "Bad news: Mike Johnson from Bachelor Nation is a guy on Android." The author explains how Johnson seems to be the perfect man, but since it was revealed that he was using an Android phone, it was perhaps not worth it. pack more.

In a tweet included with the article, one person even goes so far as to say, "Is Mike still able to be single when he has an Android?"

Here is a particularly patronizing excerpt from the author of the article:

Yes, it's a little hard to judge Mike on his questionable smartphone choice, but hey. Choosing to buy an Android is a strange flex. People will tell you that they did it because it has a "very good camera" or is waterproof, but TBH, an Android could literally bend my clothes and I still would not force my friends to watch bubbles green text.

You may be thinking, "OK, well, it's an impertinent and half-joking article. Cosmopolitanso who cares? Well, Samsung seems to care about it. The most successful smartphone maker in the world has actually created an animated GIF page that Android users can send to iPhone owners who criticize their green bubble messages.

In an article summarizing (and severely criticizing) Samsung's GIF files, The edge went so far as to say that when the arguments of the green bubble are raised, "the only solution, in reality, is to get an iPhone."

These are two very recent examples, but I could find a lot more about Twitter, Instagram and even YouTube. Just be assured that this green bubble problem is not just about Android's sensitive users complaining of arrogant iPhone users, like some relics of the past "iOS vs. Android". It is a legitimate antagonism.

Why does this happen?

I gladly admit that iMessage users must have some sort of meaning that a person in their chat does not use the iPhone. The green bubble function may not be the most aesthetic solution, but it is simple and effective. If it did not exist, iPhone users could be frustrated by trying multiple times to use an iMessage feature and find that it was not working properly.

There are people who think that Apple has deliberately made the green bubble color as ugly as possible as a subtle attack on Android, and this strategy may entice iPhone users to not be safe. associate with Android users.

In this article The New York Posta teacher named Grayson Earle poses this theory. The article itself talks about various people who refuse to send a message with "green bubbles," including a woman named Katie McDonough who will not go out with a man using an Android phone.

"If it's not a blue message, I will not bother to flirt with you," she said. The post office. "I'm just like" Why do not you have an iPhone? ""

For some people, it seems that the idea of ​​not owning an iPhone is equivalent to not owning a deodorant stick.

McDonough even admitted that when her ex-boyfriend switched from an iPhone to an Android device, she felt that the time had come for their relationship to "begin to degrade."

To explain this complete lack of compromise at McDonough, she states that she depends on the features of iMessage. For example, when the person to whom it sends a text reads its message, it is warned. And when the person is composing an answer, she is also informed. However, these two functions do not work with Android users. She does not know if her message has been read or if the sender composes a new text.

In addition to these read / write notifications, iMessage users have the ability to respond to messages sent by Emojis. Android users do not see these Emojis and can not add one themselves. Instead, they receive a text that says "[Username] loved this message, "which is hardly as fun and effective.

Young people like this feature, especially in group discussions. Since Android users can not have fun, they automatically feel excluded from these group discussions.

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Some groups of friends will even create a new newsgroup composed solely of iPhone users, so that all iMessage features are intact, excluding users. d & # 39; Android.

In this recent Twitter feedBen Bajarin's Creative Strategies tells the story of a 16-year-old boy who switched from Android to iPhone specifically because of this phenomenon of exclusion. "We were going to start a new discussion group and the group would understand that I was the reason it was green and they would start another group discussion without me," quotes the boy. He also mentioned that the boy had confessed that his old phone was missing: a Google Pixel 2.

Let's be honest: it's about income and status

The boy mentioned above, who switched from a Pixel 2 to an iPhone just to integrate with his friends, seems to be a modern example of a normal teenager problem: the desire not to be an outsider and to be rather a popular member of the crowd.

If we choose to see it like this – and just like that – it may be easy to think of it as a secular problem that manifests itself simply in a new technological form.

This lowers the problem. Let's look at the problem from a more traditional angle and imagine that instead of an iPhone, these groups are talking about something else – let's say a pair of fashionable shoes.

The iPhone is more than just a phone. It's a status symbol that looks like a designer handbag or a luxury car.

These shoes are all the rage: you can see celebrities wearing them and people lining up around the block just to get one. But as they are fashionable and so popular, they are also expensive.

For children born in financially stable families, it is relatively easy to get a pair of these shoes. They simply ask their parents over and over again, and eventually they will get them. It may take until their next birthday or Christmas, but these shoes will come.

For children born into families without financial stability, these shoes will probably never come. With this in mind, it becomes very easy to visibly determine rich and poor children by walking down the hallways of any high school in the United States. Just look at the shoes.

The iPhone – as much as we, Android users, do not like to admit – is no different from these shoes of fiction. Even though there are many Android smartphones that cost as much (if not more) than a brand new iPhone, in the United States, it is thought that Android phones are cheaper and cheaper than the iPhone. Many young people will see another young person using a smartphone that is not an iPhone and assume immediately that they are not cool and probably poor.

People who like to dislike green bubbles in their iMessage conversations might try to argue that the only reason they hate these green text boxes is the way they mess up the features of iMessage, a said Mrs. McDonough. The New York Post. But let 's be true: the iPhone is a symbol and is only affordable for people with some income. So there are iPhone users who see a green bubble and think, "This person is not part of the crowd and probably not rich. "

A green bubble = Android in iMessage, but in the eyes of some iPhone users, a green bubble = a poor one.

In a sense, The edge It is fair to say that the best way not to experience this kind of rejection is to simply get an iPhone. Buy a used one or opt for an older model that could be cheaper. Hell, get an iPod Touch if you need it. But this is not a solution to the problem, but to give in to peer pressure, which is taught to us at a very young age is universally bad.

Honestly, I do not know what to say to this poor child who felt he needed to get rid of his Google Pixel 2 just to appease his friends who had sidelined him. On the one hand, I would love to tell him to stick to his weapons, to keep the phone he wants and tell his friends to take care of it. On the other hand, I know that this kind of pressure can be discouraging for a teenager – after all, I was one at one point.

I guess the best advice I can give him, and all those who are stuck in this situation, is pretty simple: Remind your friends that the green bubble they criticize is not just a bubble , it's you. If your friends always exclude you after saying that, choosing your smartphone is not the problem.