Ephemeral Messaging Apps

Community messaging apps are platforms designed for group communication around shared interests, featuring enclosed channels, privacy tools, and unique social norms. They serve as hubs for communities, offering encrypted or semi-private chats for everything from hobbies to activism.

Encrypted Messaging Communities are groups of privacy-focused individuals who use end-to-end encrypted messaging tools and actively exchange practices to secure their digital communications.

Facebook Messenger is a global instant messaging app used for real-time text, voice, and video communication, as well as sharing media and interacting with social features within the Facebook ecosystem.

Snapchat is a multimedia messaging app where users share self-destructing photos and videos, known as Snaps, as well as Stories and augmented reality (AR) experiences, encouraging playful and spontaneous interactions within private and semi-public groups.

Persistent group-messaging communities formed by university students to coordinate academic and social life, sharing insider lingo, memes, and rituals.

Student group chats are persistent messaging groups formed by university students to coordinate academic, social, and extracurricular life, featuring distinct cultures shaped by insider language, rituals, and shared experiences.

Diaspora Messaging Circles are digital chat groups where members of a diasporic community connect, support one another, and maintain ties to their homeland through shared language, cultural content, and insider communication norms.

iMessage is Apple’s native, end-to-end encrypted messaging platform for iOS and macOS users, characterized by its distinctive blue message bubbles and tightly knit user culture. The community of 'Blue Bubble' users shares a unique digital identity, communication style, and set of features inaccessible to non-Apple users.

Friend group chats are private digital spaces where friends interact via messaging platforms, cultivating uniquely shared culture, references, and rituals that reinforce their collective identity.

WhatsApp Users are a vast global community relying on WhatsApp for daily messaging, group communication, media sharing, and secure private interactions. Their culture revolves around fast, informal, and encrypted exchanges that blend personal and professional life.

Decentralized social networks are online communities that operate on federated protocols, allowing users across independent servers (instances) to interact seamlessly. These networks prioritize user sovereignty, resisting centralized control by distributing governance and content hosting.

iMessage Family Group Chats are ongoing, private digital spaces where families communicate, share media, and maintain relationships using Apple’s iMessage platform.