BOSTON, MA — What began as a normal Friday night check-in quickly turned tragic when the group chat of lifelong friends was irrevocably destroyed after one member, 39-year-old Ted Phelps, switched to a Samsung Galaxy.
According to witnesses, the chat — titled “The Boys 🦅🍻” — had thrived for nearly seven years, surviving breakups, fantasy leagues, and countless poorly timed memes. But within seconds of Ted’s first message from his new device, the once-tight digital brotherhood fell apart.
“It just… turned green,” said group member Alex Renner, staring blankly at his dim phone screen. “The reactions stopped working. The images came through blurry. We couldn’t even name the group anymore. It was like watching democracy collapse in real time.”
Other members described the aftermath as “silent chaos.”
“Someone tried to send a GIF and it just became a link,” said Mark Tran, the chat’s unofficial moderator. “We lost communication. We lost trust. We lost the ability to drop ‘HAHA’s’ on dumb jokes.”
By Saturday morning, the group gathered at a local bar for what they called a “vigil of remembrance.” They raised glasses, scrolled through screenshots of the blue days, and played old voice notes that still played out in full quality audio.
Ted attempted to rejoin the group via a new Android chat app but was promptly exiled. “They said they’d add me back if I got an iPhone,” he said, holding his phone like a banned relic. “I didn’t know one green bubble could end decades of friendship.”
As candles flickered around a framed screenshot of the final blue-bubble thread, Alex offered a final toast: “He may still be our friend, but more like a once a month in-person friend.”
