We have always lived with the drama of the popcorn. The double check blue meaning was sacred: message read and person ignoring you blatantly. But now things have gotten complicated. It turns out that WhatsApp is testing a third blue check, and no, it’s not a joke . If three blue popcorn kernels appear, it means that your message wasn’t only read by the original recipient, but that someone else has seen it because it was forwarded . Privacy is basically going to hell.
What many people don’t know, and that’s why they ask what does seen on WhatsApp mean exactly, is that “seen” and “read” are the same thing. There’s no difference . If you enter the chat and the two popcorn kernels turn blue, even if you haven’t read the text because the doorbell happened to ring and you closed the app, for the other person it’s as if you had devoured it with your eyes . It’s a bummer, but that’s how it is. The app registers that you opened the conversation, not that you ran your eyes over every word.
To throw people off, people use weird codes. If you see that someone sends you a message that says “vv”, don’t think it’s a keyboard mistake. The meaning of vv on WhatsApp is the abbreviation of “seen seen” . It’s like a way of saying “I already saw it, but I don’t feel like replying or I have nothing to add.” It’s mostly used in huge groups where replying with an individual “thanks” would be a pain. Or it also works as “okay okay” to get out of it quickly.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the meaning, but that you can’t see a damn thing. With those cursed custom themes, the blue blended in with the gray and you didn’t know if you’d been read or not . Luckily, Meta realized the mess and they’ve already gone back to the classic blue so that the blue double check WhatsApp stands out well and there are no confusions . Because come on, the last thing we need is to argue with our mother because she says we read it and it wasn’t true.
Now, if what you want is to live in peace and not be controlled, you can turn off read receipts from the privacy settings . But watch out, there’s a catch. If you turn them off, you won’t see other people’s either, and in groups the blue popcorn kernels will still appear . You’re not going to escape everyone. In the end, the app traps you.
