Voices: Just like Kourtney Kardashian, I’m the victim of a dreaded family WhatsApp group chat

The Kardashian family have a WhatsApp family group chat that excludes Kourtney (Hulu/The Independent )

I’m not a fan of the Kardashians, but I couldn’t resist watching the new Season Four premiere of The Kardashians when I heard about their secret family WhatsApp group chat.

Kim Kardashian reveals it’s labelled “Not Kourtney” – it’s where they compain about her sister Kourtney behind her back, or back-stab her under the guise of caring about her.

It triggered me – my family’s group chat groups might be called things like “Dad has gout” or “Who is hosting Christmas”, but they can be equally poisonous. The truth is: there is nothing worse than a WhatsApp chat group and I am refusing to ever be in one again.

In the latest episode of the clan’s reaity TV series, Kim and Kourtney are in the midst of a heated phone call when Kim drops the bomb that they all talk about her on this group chat, after Kourtney claims Kim wasn’t happy that she wasn’t the “centre of attention” at Kourtney’s wedding to Travis Barker.

Kim denies this and justifies the group chat as a way for the family to “figure out” why Kourtney is such a “different person” and why she has this “vendetta”. “We are all concerned,” she says. “We all think you’re really not happy.” The truth is Kourtney was perfectly happy five minutes before she got on the phone to her sister.

Kourtney calls Kim a “narcissist” in a voice that is full of bitterness – and slams her for “weaponising everyone against me”. “A side chat with me as the topic?” says Kourtney, genuinely hurt.

I’ve been there! It’s just a bad case of the dreaded family WhatsApp group – where siblings can gang up, ostracise you – and make you feel like you’ve been run over by a truck.

This week’s first episode was titled “You’re A Witch and I Hate You” – it’s what Kourtney tearfully says to Kim, but it could have easily been copy and pasted from one of my family group chat messages.

The sisters are at war. It almost doesn’t matter to me why because it’s so interchangeable with my own experience of sibling rivalry with my older sister – and as longstanding.

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Tensions were high between Kim and Kourtney in season three when they had a major bust up over Dolce and Gabbana.

Kim collaborated with the luxury fashion brand to be a creative director for one of their shows in Milan just a few months after Kourtney teamed up with them for her wedding to Travis Barker – it upset Kourtney, who accused Kim of using her wedding as a “business opportunity”.

There was a small breather at the end of the last season, when it looked like the sisters had made up after a few heart-to-hearts on a bed. But by the start of the new season, it’s clear this is not the case. It sinks to an all-time low when Kim drags Kourtney’s kids into the row, claiming even they have come to her “with problems that they have and how you are”.

Why is it that only your family know exactly how to press your buttons – and stick the knife in? It’s like we are perpetual kids fighting in the payground well into our 40s. What really resonated with me was when Kourtney talked about being reminded of “this characteristic that has been in her family for so many years where we say mean things to hurt each other”.

“And it’s what I work hard at in therapy to change and when I’m reminded of those types of things, it really is hurtful like, why would my family treat me that way?”

I have no idea. I may be very diferent to Kourtney – but it all sounds so familiar. My family is a more bog-standard version of the Kardashians and less botoxed – but we are equally as dysfunctional.

I know exactly what it’s like to be on the receiving end of WhatsApp family group – it’s hell. I’ve nearly lost my mind dealing with the constant pinging of new messages with the next upsetting or annoying twist.

The last group chat called involved me singlehandedly sorting my father out in hospital and updating the family, only to get a response informing me I’d spelled a word wrong.

Even though a group chat may have been started with the best intentions, it’s ended with me effectively being trolled by my own family. Straightforward communication about a birthday party can descend quite easily into a nightmare of random unrelated derogatory comments.

I should have left the last one long before I did – it was like staying in an abusive relationship. WhatsApp group chats exacberate things, especially if one member has to get the last word in.

As if the school WhatsApp wasn’t bad enough – where you get shamed for forgetting to bring a bag of pasta to the Harvest Festival – to add family into the mix is a recipe for distaster.

No wonder Kourtney feels everybody is against her – using family WhatsApp groups to make others feel that everybody hates them is mean and can be a form of bullying.

Like Kourtney, I want to protect my energy from the inevitable family dramas. You never know, if everybody “digs deep” as Kourtney asks Kim to do, and we all look at our own issues, rather than pointing fingers, we might just have a nice Christmas. We just won’t message about it.