I do some of my best writing in GChat. It’s my most used method of communicating. I have a smartphone so I can GChat from it, making phone calls is secondary. I tell funny stories on GChat, play therapist, vent, gossip, and talk to friends who are miles away, but mostly I use it as a tool of procrastination and distraction. Caroline Bankoff of Thought Catalog turned her GChat habit into an essay about her GChat history (via The Hairpin):
“4. I started GChatting on March 6th, 2007, and as of this writing, I have 9940 chats in my records. If you have an idea for how I should commemorate my 10,000th chat – I estimate it will take place sometime late next week – you should let me know.”
“14. Results returned by searching my GChat records for the phrases “good name for a band,” “good band name,” “what I should call my band,” “what we should call our band,” “what I will call my band,” and “what we will call our band”: Philistine Collusion, Tits on a Stick, Better Yet, The NuvaRing, Reptar, The Candy (Ass) (W)Rappers, Joe Wilson’s Outburst, Black Market Fats, White Women in Peril, Shame Spiral.”
I started GChatting on February 4, 2007. My then-boyfriend (now husband) was the first person I chatted with. He wrote, “First off, how are you between the hips?” I should’ve taken that first chat off record. I have 6,399 chats in my records and looking back through those chats proved to be a bit depressing. I am not as mature as I think I am; the word “poop” beat out the words “write” and “Obama” combined.
The bright side of my GChat research is that I have found some ways that Gchat could be useful for writers; we could steal some chat dialogue for characters, recall conversation for memoirs, or create found poetry. There’s got to be a reason the folks at Google have allowed us to save every single chat.
So, GChat users, how many chats do you have in your records? What are some of your most (shameful) used words?
