The text Julie Story received from her mum about a sick relativewas urgent and frustratingly context-less.
“She’s got another infection,” the message read, followed by a gnarly photo of the infection itself. Later, Story – a Florida-based comedy creator – learned her relative was already on antibiotics and doing completely fine.
But in the moment, she had no idea who her mum was talking about or how serious the situation was.
The text was alarming, but Story said these kinds of urgent, context-free updates from her mum are nothing new.
“Out-of-the-blue texts like this used to flood my nervous system with panic, but now I remind myself that what I just read is likely an exaggeration of the facts and isn’t the full story,” she said.
“I’ve gotten so many ‘URGENT SOS’ text messages that I’ve mentally renamed them ‘clickbait’ because that’s how they read.”
Story recently made a viral TikTok lovingly poking fun at boomers’ knack for...
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