It’s 19:47 on a school night. Your son is in bed, phone glowing with 13 minutes to spare before he has to hand it over. In a chat called “Da Boys”, someone has just posted a photo of a girl from their grade with three words underneath: “Hot or Not?”🤯🤯
Twenty-two boys can see it. Within a minute there are eleven replies. Some are crude. Some are cruel. Some are just laughing emojis. Two are vomit emojis Your son doesn’t type anything. He just reads.
Tomorrow he’ll come down for breakfast like nothing happened. Because, as far as he’s concerned, nothing did.
Why the Cornell story matters to this conversation
For many families, the sudden exposure of fifty seven young guys at Cornell University was the first time group chat behaviour felt like something serious. Yes, the primary issue of courchatgroup where her body was offered up in a group chat like she was a tub of icecream-raping a young female student but another 57 were on the frat house chatgroup where her body was offered up in a group chat with the words “shop still open” and “free P*Y upstairs”🤬🤬🥵🥵.
After our softmaxxing post last week, a parent asked if we could shift the focus onto how boys talk about girls in group chats. We agreed -we need this conversation. And we need to widen it. Girls humiliate boys. Boys turn on boys. Girls pile on against girls. All our teens need to recognise when a chat stops being fun and starts hurting someone.
The accused have not been convicted, some deny wrongdoing, and the criminal investigation has been reopened. But it was the reported Snapchat messages, allegedly describing her as available to others, that made headlines every parent needs to think about.
Messages typed casually among friends ended up in a court file. Ninety nine percent of our children will never be anywhere near a case like that. But the habits behind it, the online discussions of this girl’s body, or that boy’s physique, the online “hot or not’ class ranking, the forwarding of images, the staying quiet but posting a laughing emoji, are being learned by all of our kids right now. Often by kids who are 10, 12 and 14.
So what is happening on the home front with our own children?🌎🌅
Below are some examples that we deal with at Klikd…every one reflects the kinds of situations Klikd gets calls from parents and schools to deal with all the time.
❌The list. A Grade 7 chat starts a running “ranking” of girls in the grade, updated weekly with scores and comments about their bodies. A girl’s younger brother sees it on a friend’s phone. Within days, parents, the principal and the girls themselves have read every word. Three boys are suspended. Two lose leadership positions they’d worked years for.
❌The fake. An 11-year-old uses a free app to put a classmate’s face on a nude body “as a joke”. He sends it to four friends. It spreads to other schools by the weekend. The girl knows it isn’t her, but everyone is talking behind her back as if it is. Her parents go to the school and then the police. They want justice.
❌The breakup. A 14 year old girl sends her boyfriend a private photo. When they split, he drops it in the group with “Proof she’s crazy 😂”. He deletes it ten minutes later. By then, six people have saved it. Four shared it. All control of the image has been lost.
❌The voice note. An 12 year old boy, sends a voice note to a girl admitting he likes her. She forwards it to her friends. It gets remixed into a TikTok sound that makes him sound desparate. He refuses to go to school for a week.
❌The poll. “Who in our grade is the easiest?” Names are added as options. Nobody votes for long, and the list is taken down but the screenshot of the poll lives on, and so does the label.
❌The kid who said no. A boy calls out ugly ‘bro behaviour’ on a group chat: “Dude that’s not okay”. He’s removed from the chat, nicknamed “Faghag” and left out of a weekend plan. He tells his mom he just doesn’t feel like going out anymore. On Monday no-one picks him for their seven-a-side soccer game.
Where it ends up
While these scenarios are different, the outcome is almost always the same. Someone posts. Others react, because reacting is how you show you belong. Someone screenshots. Then it leaves the chat, and the child who started it loses all control of what happens next.
The fallout can include school discipline, police involvement, protection orders, lost friendships and serious harm to a child’s mental health. On every side of the screen.😢😢
What the law says (in plain language)
🟥 Let’s be clear: Your child can be held legally responsible -even If they didn’t post It – read that again!!
In South Africa, from as young as 12, your child can be held legally responsible for content shared in a WhatsApp group — even if they didn’t post it.
If they remain in a group where illegal content (racist material, pornography, explicit images) is shared – and do not actively distance themselves (by leaving the group or objecting to the content— the law may view them as participating in its publication.
If they are admin of the Whatapp group , the law expects them to delete the content (which admins now can ! ) – if they don’t, the law could see your child as responsible for allowing the content to be published (because they had the ability to stop it from being published )
Another serious issue:
By default, WhatsApp automatically saves media to the device gallery unless this setting is switched off. That means inappropriate or explicit images shared in a group may be automatically saved to your child’s phone.
If those images involve minors, even as a “joke” or deepfake, your child could potentially be in possession of child pornography simply because the image saved automatically.
This is not theoretical. This is legal reality.
My angel would never – what was that child thinking?😱😱
It’s tempting to think “my angel would never” and only “damaged kids” behave like this. In reality, most of the children in these stories are kind, funny, ordinary kids who may be great at algebra and public speaking. Understanding why our kids fall into group chat ugliness is what helps us change it.
Their brains are wired for the group. In adolescence, the part of the brain that craves reward and social approval is running at full speed, while the part that pauses, weighs consequences and says “wait” is still developing.
Research also shows teens take more risks simply because peers are watching. A group chat is an audience that never logs off.
Laughter is currency. In many chats, the edgiest comment earns the most reactions. That right there is a cheap easy dopamine hit that quietly teaches everyone what the group values,
The person disappears. On a screen, a girl becomes a photo and a boy becomes a screenshot. Without a face in front of them, it’s much easier for teens to forget there’s a real person who will feel this.
Thirty people means no one’s responsible. The bigger the group, the more each person assumes someone else will speak up. Silence starts to feel normal, and normal starts to feel okay.
What can I do to bring the message home – my child is still young?
We can’t sit inside every chat, and reading our children’s phones in secret usually backfires. What works better is being the adult they can talk to – really to! So…
Talk about the group, not just your child. Ask what gets laughs, what gets someone kicked out, who tends to be the target. Give them short, real-world words they can use: “Not cool.” “Count me out.” “Leave her alone.” Remind them that checking in privately with the person being targeted counts, too.
And say this out loud, before anything goes wrong: “If something happens in a chat that makes you uncomfortable, even if you were part of it, even if you started it, come to us. We’ll help first and deal with the rest later.”
✅✅✅Conversation starters for younger kids (8 to 12)
Keep it light and curious. Short chats in the car work better than big sit-down talks.
- “What’s the funniest thing in your group chat this week?” Starting with the good stuff opens the door.
- “What do you notice when someone is teased on Discord or on one of your WhatsApp group chats?” How do the others behave – is it easy to join in when lots of people start teasing one person?
- “If someone sent you a picture of another kid with their costume slipping down, what would you do if it really looked funny? Do you think you could get in trouble for sharing it?”
- “What could you say if everyone was making mean jokes about ?” Let’s come up with three together. Remember short and sharp for the win: ”Not cool.” “Count me out.” “Leave her alone”.
- “If anything in a chat ever made you feel uncomfortable, would you show me?” I promise I won’t freak out.
✅✅✅Conversation starters for older kids (13 to 18)
Be honest, share what you’ve read today, and be ready to listen more than you talk.
- “Have you heard about the Cornell case? What do you think about the group chat side of it?” What are people saying on TikTok? Do you agree with that?
- “Do groupchats like that exist at your school -ones where guys talk about girls bodies or girls mock boys for being weak? You don’t have to name anyone.”
- “What makes it so hard to be the one who says ‘that’s not okay’?” What would make it easier?
- “Did you know forwarding a nude of someone under 18 can be a crime, even if you’re also a teen?” What would you do if one landed on your phone?
- “If something went badly wrong, even if you’d broken the rules, would you call us?” What would you need to hear from us to feel safe doing that?
The Cornell story feels a world away, especially if your child is still young. But the habits that end up in court files start much younger, in chats just like the ones our kids are in tonight.
And that’s the hopeful part. It means there’s still time to shape them into kind, considered young adults. 🌸
Stay connected
Sarah and Pam💙
