Why We Can’t #DeleteWeChat

There is no official statistics over the Chinese usage of WeChat Groups, so Yan and I could only refer to our own life experiences to show you the diverse profile and utility of this feature. We are two working Chinese adults in our mid-20s, and here are some of the Groups we currently have:

• Family/relatives Groups:

Personally, I am currently in three family-related Groups: one consisted by my parents and I, and two for relatives on my mom and dad’s sides respectively. The latter two both contain members across three generations – thanks to elderly-friendly smartphones, my grandparents have turned into devoted WeChat users, obsessively sharing articles and photos in our family Group every day.

My relatives are dispersed in many different cities and countries, and our family groups has done a terrific job in gathering everyone together in an intimate manner that we never felt during the pre-WeChat era. An extra bonus? Endless red packets during festival seasons! (My 82-year-old grandfather once lovingly complained that he was at the brink of going bankrupted because of Red Packets – “WeChat is making me broke!”)

• Work-related Groups:

As long as you are working in China or with the Chinese, chances are you are in at least one work Group on WeChat. They are the ones that you can’t mute (a considering function of WeChat, which allows users to mute some of the chats and eliminate pop-up notifications), can’t delete, and in most cases have to purposely hung to sticky status (again, another very considerate in-app function). They destroy your weekends, break your work-life boundaries, and makes holidays utopian. Unless you have the guts to declare WeChat-disappearance from your boss, otherwise expect endless in-groups “@” that reminds you of your never-ending workloads anytime, anywhere.

Rants aside, we have to admit Groups really do a superb job in boosting productivity and, more importantly, cultivating interpersonal connections. You might have never met with some of the group members you are working on a certain project with, but by adding them as your personal WeChat contacts, instantaneously you are granted entry into a more private dynamic of their lives with the potential to foster personal connections. Doing business in China is all about relationships, and Groups, under the name of work, is the best place to start your relationship-cultivation.

• Old classmates/friends/social organization Groups:

I know we are tossing a lot of things together under this category, but really, what we mean is the kind of Groups that you feel socially belong to yet are not really bothered to engaged with on a regularly basis. Most of these Groups are large in size (at least 20 people) and could be filled with members you are not exactly familiar with. Still, by putting them in mute and only checking occasionally, you get to be posted about the occasional gossips, or even catch some red packets from random acquaintances.

But not of all these Groups are “boring” or “useless”. When we asked our Chinese friends what their most-treasured WeChat Groups are, someone showed us a “Sticker-battling” (斗图) Group, where members constantly bash each other with self-made stickers and communicate through these creative visual expressions. From Peppa Pig, Gavin Thomas to Jiang Zemin, Groups like this one have acted as incubators for endless internet memes, providing young Chinese a new language and space for entertainment.

Since 2016, WeChat has gradually taken a stricter approach over the management of WeChat Groups. Apart from restricting the maximum Group members to 500, it also reinforced the role of group “host” (群主), a specific individual that would be legally responsible for all the in-group speeches and actives. Such policies are WeChat’s way of negotiating between the government and its users (now over a billion of us!): ever since WeChat launched in 2011,  Chinese users have been utilizing Groups to run everything in the grey area, from pyramid-selling, gambling, to the share of porn and “incorrect political information”.

As the old Chinese saying goes, “when the top has plans, the bottom always has counter-plans” (上有政策，下有对策). Despite tougher regulations, many Chinese today are still using WeChat Groups to leverage business interests, express political views or discuss social issues. “Some of my friends would send out a ‘dangerous’ news in our group, wait for 2 minutes, then withdraw it in a flash,” says a friend we interviewed, “it is a useful and perhaps the last resort for us to see the other side of the story without getting everyone into trouble.”