Several People Are Typing

About

Several People Are Typing is an automatic chat notification that appears on Discord and other messaging apps whenever several people are typing something in chat at the same time. Online, a screenshot of the notification has been used as a reaction for provocative posts, instantly able to incite anger, shock and other reactions from multiple people, such as tagging @everyone in the middle of the night.

Origin

In the instant messaging app Discord, released in May 2015, the chat status "Several people are typing…" is shown whenever more than three people are typing something in chat at the same time (notification shown below).

On March 26th, 2017, Tumblr^[1] user ijestphobes made the earliest found post that included the "Several people are typing…" notification as a part of the joke. The post, a reaction to a person asking what vore is in a Discord chat, gained over 33,000 likes and reblogs in six years (shown below). Tumblr user mintyfreshgirl then reiterated the punchline in a reply to the post.

Spread

Following the viral spread of the post, the "Several people are typing" notification achieved popularity on Tumblr as a reaction to provocative posts, being used both as part of posts and as a reply by other users. For example, on July 26th, 2017, the Tumblr^[2] gimmick account outofcontextdiscord posted a screenshot of a Discord message that prompted multiple people to type simultaneously. The post (shown below, left) gained over 29,000 reblogs and 25,500 likes in six years. On September 17th, 2017, Redditor^[3] PostingDude posted another meme that gained over 18,000 upvotes on the /r/me_irl subreddit in six years (shown below, right).

The reaction format maintained its virality in the following years, being used across Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit and other sites, both in image form and as a text reply or catchphrase. For example, on February 2nd, 2018, Twitter^[4] user @MEdwardsVA posted a meme that received over 2,400 retweets and 6,900 likes in five years (shown below, left). On May 11th, 2019, iFunny^[5] user NonSequitur1275 posted a meme that was featured and gained over 53,000 smiles in four years (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References