Breakup Texts

About

Break-up Texting refers to the ending a romantic relationship via short messaging service (SMS). Due to the social stigma surrounding this practice, screenshots of break-up texts have been frequently shared online and ridiculed in the blogosphere.

Origin

One of the earliest mentions of breakup texts was in a video created by comedian Liam Kyle Sullivan in 2006 titled “Text Message Breakup,” which features a song about a girl’s anger at being broken up with via text. After being posted to his website, the video was uploaded to YouTube by xxxEminemcrazedxxx^[1] on December 26th, 2006. As of April 2014, the video has gained over 93,000 views.

Spread

The first Urban Dictionary^[8] entry for text message breakup was submitted by user Gtron on December 27th, 2006, defining it as:

“to break up with someone via a text message. Highly looked down upon in the dating world.”

On February 13th, 2007, The Washington Post^[6] published a piece about the phenomena of breaking up through text and other forms of technology titled “Hey, You’re Breaking Up on Me!,” and on May 28th, 2007, Alloy, a teen site, published a post titled “Sound Off: Is It OK To Break Up With Your BF in a Text Message?” On February 12th, 2010, GeekSugar^[9] published a piece titled “Is It Ever OK to Dump Someone Via Text Message?,” which featured a readers poll which showed over 70% of readers were against text breakups.

In 2012, round-ups of screenshots of funny or particularly harsh text breakups became popular, with such lists featured on Glamour^[10], tech humor site Smartphowned^[11] and Buzzfeed.^[12]

On May 14th, 2012, Gawker^[13] reported that a woman received a long text from a man she had rejected after one date that seemed to criticize her. He followed it up with an apology and an explanation that it wasn’t about her or meant for her to see.

On September 25th, 2013, Gawker^[14] reported on an instance of breakup text revenge. When Quin Woodward Pu, a 26-year-old woman from Washington, DC received a break-up text from a man she had been seeing for a few weeks, she decided to get back at him by forwarding their sexts he had sent from his company Blackberry to his boss.

Though she recieved negetive feedback when the story was reported on, in an interview with DC site In the Capital^[16] Pu maintained she had been right to react with revenge after the breakup texting, saying:

" I am a writer. This is what writing--and journalism--should do. It should incense. It should evoke, if not provoke. The reason this story has caught so much attention is because it is relatable, on both sides of the gender line. To be fair, the man has both my books; he also knew what he was getting himself into."

In 2013 roundups of screenshots of funny text breakups were published by many sites including The Huffington Post^[17] and Smosh.^[18]

Instagram Break-up

On April 22nd, 2014, Instagram user cjkarl1^[1] posted a picture of himself with his girlfriend next to the same picture with his girlfriend cropped out. He used the hashtag #TransformationTuesday to tag the picture, which is normally used to show off weight lose or some other kind og makeover. His girlfriend commented on the photo asking, “is this your way of breaking up with me.” As of April 24th, the Instagram account has over 14,000 followers but has removed all photos, including the breakup image. The breakup Instagram was covered by UpRoxx^[3], Gawker^[4] and Elite Daily.^[5]