A lot of people are really weird about the colour of text message bubbles. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, a message can somehow be more offensive if it is presented on an iPhone within a green bubble instead of a blue bubble.
Apple makes any messages sent from Android devices appear green on iOS, while iMessages between iOS devices are blue. This feature allows iPhone users to determine if someone they’re texting has an Android, and when iPhone users call out Android users for sending green texts, the feature allows Android users to know when an iPhone user has weird hang-ups.
Granted, messaging over iMessage means the user isn’t paying per text, and messaging between iOS and Android can complicate group messaging — but being upset with someone for sending a green text is the pettiest of frustrations.
This phenomenon affects some people so deeply that they criticise others for making messages appear in their phone in a green bubble. And it makes some people feel embarrassed about sending green messages.
One former Gizmodo staffer even admitted to buying an iPhone purely out of shame for his green bubbles while he’s making his way through the dating scene.
Samsung is making an effort to combat bubble bullying.
Samsung has now made several reaction GIFs and put them on Giphy. Many of these Gifs show anthropomorphised green bubbles flaunting their green-bubbleness, or attacking or transforming blue bubbles.
As The Verge points out, Samsung paid some Instagram meme pages to post memes that show text exchanges in which the GIFs were shared, and include the hashtag #GreenDontCare.
Samsung did not respond to a Gizmodo request for comment on these weird and creepy GIFs.
While blue-bubble supremacists are clearly bigger dorks than Android users, the messaging here does not help Samsung owners look any better. It’s kind of like when a kid gets bullied and their parents offer up some nerdy comebacks. And then the parents pay a lot of money to post that comeback on the walls of the school computer science lab.