Parents,
Beware: Your Texts Could End Up Here
By Lily Samuels ’11
Take a random text from Mom,
add the creativity of a jobless Smith graduate, and what
you get is one highly entertaining (and lucrative) Web site.
Lauren Kaelin ’10
(on left) and her business partner/best friend Sophia
Fraioli (photo by Sophia Fraioli) |
is
the brainchild of Lauren Kaelin ’10 and Sophia Fraioli,
a 2010 graduate of the University of Vermont. The Web site,
which has drawn considerable attention, showcases humorous
and random text message exchanges between parents and their
bemused children. According to Kaelin, whenparentstext.com—with
its tagline "small keypad, old hands"—attempts to capture
the wide range of “trials
and errors that come when a parent handles a cell phone.”
A revamped version of the site
launched on April 5.
But whenparentstext.com is not
simply a joke at parental expense. The Web site is evolving
from poking fun at some parents’ technological illiteracy
to highlighting the hilarity—and
at times utter hopelessness—of parent-child communication.
“In the beginning the Web site was about the errors of technology—T-9 word
entry, abbreviations and ‘liking’ things on Facebook,” Kaelin explains. “But
more and more, the Web site has become less about technology and more about
relationships and about (sometimes failed) attempts to communicate.”
The project emerged out of amusement
and a bit of desperation after Kaelin’s
graduation from Smith. “I realized I was left with no immediate
job prospects and looming student loans,” she remembers. “One
night, I showed my childhood best friend, Sophia, a text
from my Mom (now titled ‘Tacos for Dinner’ on the
site). And we decided there should be a Web site dedicated
to these text exchanges.”
Little did the women know that
in a matter of months whenparentstext.com would receive millions
of hits, start a Facebook frenzy, and attract serious attention
from publishers and media groups.
For Kaelin and Fraioli,
their joint enterprise is a quirky intersection of friends,
family and business. “Sophia and
I are best friends-turned-business partners. We both had
to move back home after graduation and were both struggling
with redefining our relationships with our parents—as
roommates and as adults. Now, we jokingly call each other
BPs and have business meetings in my living room.”
The next big step for Kaelin
and Fraioli is the compilation of a book that will follow
the eccentricities of the two founders’ families and the origin of the
Web site, featuring never-before-seen texts and anecdotes. “We've
been saving gems for months now, so the book will end up
being about 50 percent new material,” Kaelin
reveals.
The popularity of the Web site,
which receives nearly 10 million hits and views a month,
did not escape the notice of publishers. A bidding war in
New York City ended with Kaelin and Fraioli signing on with
Workman Publishers, a small, privately owned company. The
book is due for publication this fall.
The premise of whenparentstext.com
has proven versatile. In addition to their book, Kaelin and
Fraioli are exploring the possibility of a TV series focusing
on life after college and the complexities of the “modern” family. “It's
in the very early stages, but there has been some interest
from some amazing people,” says
Kaelin.
The wild initial success and
rising popularity of the Web site still comes as a shock
for Kaelin, so fresh from graduation that she still identifies
as a Smithie, loyal to Morrow House.
“Did I ever expect this?” she muses. “No. It's crazy, a lot of fun, and truthfully,
sometimes really overwhelming. I never thought it'd be doing
this, and I pinch myself every day.”
Kaelin is dedicated to the constant
improvement of her Web site and the concept behind it. The
revamped site retains the features of the original, launched
last year, such as allowing visitors to submit texting exchanges
with their parents, view the daily uploads, and search the
archived posts. But it has an improved format and contains
new material as well.
“The goal was to perfect the site and make it as user-friendly as possible,” Kaelin
explains. “The biggest addition is the picture messages,
which we've been saving from the beginning, and which are
absolutely hilarious.”
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