Your Group Chat Isn’t Really A Group Chat If It Doesn’t Have A ‘Normal Person Deity’

Every group chat would benefit from having a “normal person deity.” At least that’s what New York City-based comedian McKenna Moore thinks.

“I love my regular person celebrities who are only famous to me and my dumb friends,” she recently captioned a viral TikTok video that has over 856,000 views.

“These are people who would never assume that eight morons get together to name their group chat after them and screen shot every [Instagram] story that they have — just for the group, just for fun,” she said in the clip.

The object of the group chat should be someone who’s “incredibly normal,” Moore said. Actual celebrities or influencers won’t cut it.

The person “just has to be going ‘normal mode’ all the time — and for some reason, for your group, it scratches such a beautiful itch, where everything they do is important,” she said.

Maybe it’s a girl you went to high school with who posts her sock collection. Or your ex’s cousin’s mother-in-law, who’s a Disney Adult and a recovering MLMer. (Good for you, Carole!)

Or, Moore said, maybe it’s “some dude just living in Rochester, [who’s] the voice of a high school football team. That’s perfect.”

“Oh, he’s getting super into Christianity because he married a white woman and they’ve got nothing else to do — awesome. We’re going to talk about them for hours and hours and hours,” she joked of the hypothetical local sports guy.

In the comments on TikTok and Instagram, people admitted they’ve got normal people deities, too ― or a “campus celebrity” in college students’ cases.

“There’s a barista/bar back in South Philly named Curtis and I need everyone to know that my group chat reacts to seeing him in the wild the same way you would if you saw your favorite celebrity,” one woman commented.

“My friend and i have the same tax guy and we use him as a reaction emoji,” another said.

“My friends have a coworker who is afraid of tomatoes and you best believe I am always asking about tomato sam,” another volunteered.

Others admitted that they’d love nothing more than to be someone’s normal person celebrity: “this is why i stay posting on IG stories bc i know damn well i am this person for people and i need to keep them fed!!!!!!”

Yes, elevating a random person to the patron saint of your group chat can feel a little parasocial, especially when they have no idea you find them so compelling. But in the age of stan culture and Club Chalamet-level celebrity worship, Moore thinks there’s something refreshing about observing and making over the personal lives of ordinary people.

“I really do think that it’s the best way to get around the parasocial relationships that people have with celebrities,” the comedian told HuffPost over email.

“I think celebrity has become way too central in our society, and we really should just be like, gossiping about a guy we met in an open mic three months ago who posts on his Instagram stories as though he’s Dave Chappelle,” she said. “It’s more pure.”

If this all sounds a little weird or overly Gen Z to you, consider the local celebrities that have existed in small towns since time immemorial: Jerry from Harbor Freight who is currently on marriage No. 4 but still flirts with everyone and their mother. That one neighbor Janice who won’t stop talking about chem trails (Chem Trail Janice).

To keep things interesting in our lives, most of us are a bit like the USA Network in the early 2000s: “Characters welcome.”

Every generation engages in gossip and this kind of harmless, nonsexual community voyeurism, said Rana Bull, a therapist and the owner of Burrow and Bloom Therapy in Arizona.

“This phenomenon has likely become more visible and normalized because of social media. We now have constant access to people’s updates, personalities, and life events in a way that previous generations simply didn’t,” the therapist told HuffPost. “As long as the dynamic stays kind-hearted and light, I see it as a fairly harmless social phenomenon.”

Psychologically, humans are wired to pay attention to social dynamics and other people’s lives; if someone is giving us a front-row seat to their drama every night in a six-part Instagram story, most of us are sitting with bells on and popcorn in hand.

“From an evolutionary perspective, monitoring what others were doing in a community helped us stay informed, connected and safe,” Bull said. “In a modern context, that instinct often shows up in lighter, more humorous ways like collectively following the chaotic or entertaining updates of someone everyone knows.”

The trend can even be seen as a nice, prosocial behavior if you’re cheering on your normie of choice from afar, said Kiaundra Jackson, a marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, California.

“For instance, I love seeing people who are the underdogs win and become successful,” she said. “When I see people who grew up from humble beginnings, or who didn’t have a lot, and now they are having all of the success, the money and the notoriety, it makes me excited for them, but it also makes me excited for me, because if they can do it, I can also do it.”

This only becomes problematic ― maybe a little like bullying from afar — when it turns into mean-spirited gossip, comparison or judgment rather than curiosity or amusement.

“Where it can become less healthy is when the dynamic shifts from lighthearted observation to fixation or negativity,” Bull said.

“For example, if a group becomes overly invested in criticizing or monitoring someone, especially if the person becomes a kind of ‘group nemesis,’ it can reinforce gossip-based bonding rather than supportive connection,” she explained.

At that point, the focus moves away from humor or curiosity and toward judgment or comparison, like those two old men from “The Muppets” mixed with “Mean Girls.”

“If conversations about them start to dominate group discussions, influence your mood, or shape how you see your own life, it may be a sign that the dynamic has crossed from casual entertainment into something more consuming,” Bull said.

Obviously, don’t go and post about the person publicly or otherwise make it weird.

“My friends and I take great measures to make sure that the person doesn’t find out about it ― we don’t want it to be bullying,” Moore, the comedian, said. “We’re just interested and this is more group chat specific.”

Ultimately, it’s deeply human and normal to be invested in the lives of others, especially if they’re posting daily updates about their lives. They are to us what my grandma’s “stories” were to her in the 1990s. (That’s what my grandma called her soaps, “All My Children” and “General Hospital,” back in the day.)

Plus, at this stage of the internet, everyone should understand that what we post is essentially for public consumption, for better or worse.

“If you have a public Instagram or an Instagram I follow, I get to watch it and talk about it!” Moore joked. “That’s the rules.”