The SMS messaging service (for “Short Message Service”) celebrated its 30th birthday on December 3. Invented by a Finnish team employed by Telia Sonera, then by Nokia, these messages were initially intended for the hearing impaired to help them communicate. The authorship of the sending of the first SMS is also disputed since some affirm that it was sent in 1989 using a Motorola beeper, when others estimate that it is about December 3, 1992 on the network Vodafone’s GSM in the UK when software architect Neil Papworth sends the message from his PC “Merry Christmas” on an Orbitel 901 cell phone belonging to Richard Jarvis, one of the executives of Vodafone.
In 30 years, these SMS have evolved and are now free and unlimited. Twenty years ago, however, it was necessary to limit oneself to a certain number of characters and messages to be sent per month, at the risk of seeing the mobile telephone bill explode. In the meantime, in France, a few text messages have also entered the country’s political history. Others have stirred up popular culture and continue to make netizens laugh. Small anthology.
SMS is celebrating its 30th anniversary. What is for you the most mythical SMS in the history of France? For me it’s that of Rachida Dati to Brice Hortefeux, starting with “Hi le facho”.
— Romain Challand (@ChallandRomain) December 5, 2022
The best political SMS
The vagaries of Sarkozy’s heart – According The new observerthe former president would have sent, in 2007, a very dramatic SMS to his ex-wife, Cécilia, eight days before marrying Carla Bruni. The media reported while the message said: “If you come back, I cancel everything.” Cécilia did not return, and Nicolas Sarkozy married Carla Bruni. If the authenticity of the message is now disputed, Nicolas Sarkozy asserting himself in Paris Match that he never sent such a thing, it became so famous that Jeanne Cherhal even used it as the title of one of her songs in 2008.
hello facho – The Sarkozy era gave birth to several textual nuggets, including the famous message sent by Rachida Dati to Brice Hortefeux. The former Keeper of the Seals had split a mythical SMS whose incipit is almost as clear as that of The Stranger by Albert Camus. A delight.
Recipient error – What better way to close the UMP arc than with this text message tackling François Fillon sent to… François Fillon? According to the Chained Duck (encore), Nadine Morano would have liked to warn Christian EstrosiMinister of the Economy and Employment of the Fillon government, that the head of government had “shit in the boots” during the meeting she was leaving.
Yes the girl is dead — In August 2017, The chained Duck reports that Sibeth Ndiaye, then press adviser to the Élysée, responds to a journalist questioning her about the possible death of Simone Veil: “Yes, the girl is dead”. Except that the interested party denied this information. At the question “will she have a state funeral?”she would have answered: “No idea, the girl died less than twenty-four hours ago”.
These political text messages have not all become memes, for obvious reasons, but some have entered the collective memory. We think for example to the insistent and glaucous texts of Gérald Darmanin to Sophie Patterson-Spatz, who accuses him of having forced her into a sexual relationship in exchange for her favors. Emmanuel Macron is also entitled to his signature text message since Point reported that, during the covid-19 pandemic, the Head of State would have sent a nice SMS of support to Olivier VéranMinister of Health, facing the non-vaccinated: “Hold on, we’ll get them, those assholes”.
In popular culture
Simple as good evening – Reused now in all sauces, this laminar message from a football coach has become the darling of French-speaking Twitter. And in the same way, this short answer from an employee to his employer.
Shipping fees – Probably the most unusual misunderstanding of resale. An SMS exchange turned sour due to the response of the seller, who offered his product at €50, including postage. But the abbreviation “fdp” has unfortunately been over-interpreted.
A quad story – No particular little story to tell behind this exchange which boils down to a single message. Only a photo where you can read a strong request for the interested party to return a “quad”. Well, we are told in our ears that this is a screenshot from the French version of GTA (and iFruit should have tipped us off) but it’s still funny.
Too much detail – It is also unanimous on Twitter: this very cordial exchange where one message too many has slipped in. Shame.