Why are all my pretentious art friends joining signal?

> art school

> joining signal

> None of can give me a straight answer as to why.

No secret squirrel shit here, their dealer told them to use signal.

Probably to get away from Whatsapp, but they had to wait for Signal to get critical mass in the pretentious art friends circle. I probably don't have to explain why people want to get away from Facebook-owned Whatsapp.

Maybe they joined to order pot? Several non-techie acquaintances of mine popped up last year on Signal all of a sudden, and in each case it was to contact their dealers. Granted, that may say more about my social circle than yours…

Network effect, probably. One or two join, perhaps knowing why or because of their own circles outside the circle you're aware of. They know the other people (are still in touch from school) and encourage them to join, so you see a burst of activity among related (in a common fashion to you) people.

I've been watching the same thing happen over the past year or so as circles of friends from various periods in my life have joined. Often I see a burst of 3-5 people a month who are associated with each other in the same way they're associated with me (went to the same school, same school and major, hobby groups, bar trivia groups, etc.). It's normal, if you'd been on Facebook at the time it started you'd have seen something similar. The difference is that with Signal you get a prompt if you both have each other in your phone contacts, so you're notified when members of one of your social circles joins rather than having to discover them serendipitously (like with early FB, looking at friends of friends lists).

Why are you calling your friends pretentious?