Is Anyone Going to Stop Kourtney and Kim Kardashian From Going Group-Chat Scorched Earth?

In the decade or so that group chat has existed on phones, the etiquette around this still-novel mode of communication has been under near-constant cultural analysis. Why, just yesterday, The Atlantic declared of the entire endeavor: “Group-Chat Culture Is Out of Control.” And The Atlantic is right, but not for the reasons its nearly 1,500-word article states. The same day the think piece was published, we got even purer proof of group-chat toxicity: what Kim Kardashian did to Kourtney Kardashian on the premiere episode of season four of The Kardashians.  

As Kim put it in the Thursday episode: 

All of your friends call us complaining. Whether you think they’re the ones going to you, they’re all coming to us on the side, saying the opposite to us. So we’re all confused, and we’re on a group chat that’s actually labeled ‘Not Kourtney’ so we know, and have to funnel what your friends are saying to us, and have to figure out why you’re such a different person and why you have this vendetta.

For context, Kourtney’s alleged “vendetta” that Kim speaks of pertains to Kim and probably started before either sister was even verbal. The latest iteration of the seemingly eternal fight began when Kourtney married Travis Barker (again) in a May 2022 ceremony in Italy while wearing a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown. Kim then collaborated with the brand several months later. Kourtney believed Kim was chasing clout at the expense of her (Kourtney’s) happiness. Normal sisters might fight over a top; these sisters fight over allegiance to a reportedly multibillion-dollar fashion brand. (Let’s also allow that this is possibly some brand extending in action. It’s very Italian to have an intrafamilial vendetta, of course. Ask Fredo!)

It’s been a busy week, so I’ll forgive you if you want to breeze on by this, but I think it demands a little more interrogation. A group chat? Called “Not Kourtney”? Populated by one’s own family members? Not to be dramatic, but that is a punishment worse than death. Kim also said on that phone call that Kourtney’s own children had spoken to Kim about problems they were having with Kourtney, which—sorry—doesn’t hit as hard as a group chat called “Not Kourtney.” The devastation this would wreak on minds weaker than the eldest Kardashian’s. The absolute lifelong turmoil this would cause in any other relationship. Telling a person about the side chat created expressly to talk about them is instant Hague trial material. Somehow I think Kourtney will live, but the rest of us are shuddering at the thought. 

Group-chat etiquette would dictate that you simply open the group text chain sans the offending member and just pray—pray like your life depends on it—that you don’t accidentally send something shady about the excluded person to the primary group chat, the one they are still in. You never, never, never reveal the side chat on your own accord, no matter how much you’re trying to hurt the other person. And you absolutely never reveal that its name is “Not Kourtney.”

Please. We live in a society.