Social Media
Why Do Parents Always Text Like That?
"hi can you talk i'm having a panic attack"
"Golfing. Do a push up! Love you."
Nobody knows how to craft a text quite like your parents. Between the blunt advice, the overly-exaggerated storytelling, and the excessive use of punctuation, your parents’ texts are basically a comedic goldmine. So it’s no wonder why the new TikTok trend of posting your text conversations with your parents is both wholesome and hilarious.
Receiving unintentionally funny texts from your mom or dad is nothing new, but it sure does make for good TikTok content. It’s unclear who is responsible for starting the recent parent text screenshot trend, but one of the earliest instances of this particular format comes from @reese.lambert13, when the creator posted a photo slideshow on March 19 with a side-by-side of two screenshots. The first photo is a Jan. 26 tweet from Twitter user @lonnieshashanay that reads “sometimes all you need is your dad.” The second photo features a screenshot of a text conversation in which the creator wishes her father a happy birthday, and the dad simply replies, “Ok.” It’s simple and to the point, yet so unexplainably funny, just like most conversations with your parents.
The humorous trend doesn’t have a name or a hashtag to go along with it, so it can be tricky to search for it on the app. However, most people who participate in the screenshot slideshow trend add a snippet of “Butterfly Fly Away” by Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus from Hannah Montana: The Movie to play into the nostalgia even more. That being said, the song appears on the app as “Original song” by Unknown artist, which doesn’t make it that easy to find, either.
Whether you want to see how your parents’ most unhinged texts stack up against the rest, or you’re just in the mood to laugh, check out these hysterical text conversations between these TikTokers and their parents.
This exchange between @elizabethkatherine1 and her father is the epitome of a classic dad text.
This probably wasn’t the response @emma.williams13 was looking for.
Would it really be a round-up of dad texts if there wasn’t a dad joke in the mix? TikTok user @georgiegrieve shares a recent text prank from her father that was at least worthy of an LOL.
@Maayyyy444’s dad might be McDonald’s biggest stan.
The trend has also inspired numerous offshoots to include screenshots from moms, brothers, sisters, and even coworkers and your most delusional friends.
Anyone who has a brother knows this conversation between @kristin.mixon and her bro is too real.
@Ninavanv and her sister seem to have an ~interesting~ relationship.
It looks like @yingcay1 taught her mom the word “slay,” but she doesn’t know how to use it.
No one knows how to drag you better than your mom — just ask @ssaldog.
One more for the moms, brought to you by @iliketastypasta.
Hopefully these viral TikTok screenshots gave you a good laugh, and maybe they’ll even inspire you to text your parents, too.
