Sydney Robinson is the showrunner, director, writer, cinematographer and star of the internet’s new favorite show: a series of TikToks about a girls’ group chat.
The first video, which Robinson, 27, posted March 30, introduces viewers to a set of roommates whose group text chain starts to blow up when another friend makes a controversial move: inviting her boyfriend to that night's dinner reservation.
What ensues is a series of passive aggressive remarks and verbal spars exchanged between the group chat's members.
Online, viewers can't get enough of the drama.
As of Sunday, April 6, the original “Group Chat” video has more than 25 million views, 3 million likes and nearly 20,000 comments. Celebrities like Stassi Schroeder and Bethenny Frankel have posted their own videos weighing in on the drama, while Leslie Jones, Hailey Bieber and Charlie Puth (more on that later) have commented that they’re hooked on the plot’s twists and turns.
“Every single brand that I could name” has started commenting on the posts, Robinson tells TODAY.com.
“Everybody quiet … my show is on,” the TikTok account for UPS said.
“this is our super bowl,” Ashley Furniture added.
“I’ve been gaining around 100,000 (followers) every day, steady,” Robinson says.
The TikToker, who has been posting content on the app since around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly about popular TV shows, says before posting the first “Group Chat” video she was “stuck” at around 260,000 followers.
She hit one million on Saturday, April 5.
The inspiration
Robinson says she's been trying to write the “Group Chat” series for about a year.
It all started when she was watching an episode of “Jersey Shore: Family Vacation” while flying to Las Vegas in the summer of 2024.
In the episode, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino gets released from jail and alerts the rest of the cast via their group chat.
“He texts everyone that he’s out, and they’re all on a vacation in a house sleeping, and it just revives the group chat,” Robinson says. “It revives the entire group. Everyone’s like, waking up, looking at it, and just the very idea of his name popping up on their home screen sent shock waves through the house.
“I was like, ‘That. That feeling,’” she adds of what she wants to capture in her TikTok series.
The storyline so far involves one friend nearly hijacking her friends’ dinner by inviting her boyfriend, Justin, named for an inside joke among her friends.
The girl, Hailey (named after the character from “One Tree Hill,” not Hailey and Justin Bieber, Robinson notes), insists Justin had “such a rough day” and she doesn’t “want to leave him alone.” The rest of the girls in the group chat try to shut it down.
Robinson says the story does draw from some of her own experiences.
“It’s so funny the ways in which being a woman is such a universal experience,” she says. “And I think having a really close group of girlfriends with very different personalities that are bound to clash, but it doesn’t always mean the end of a friendship.”
After the series started to go viral, she says people started to text her asking, “Is this about this person?” or, “Is this about that story I told you?”
“I’m like, ‘No,’ but that’s how universal it is, that everybody lowkey thinks I’m like, subtweeting them, and I’m not,” she says.
Tensions escalate in Part 2 as Hailey leaves the group chat, while the rest of the girls find out the original reservation included Justin in the tally all along.
Then in Part 3, Hailey asks to rejoin the group and confirms she'll join them for dinner sans Justin — only for the rest of the girls to find him already at the restaurant, sparking confusion from nearly all parties.
Robinson posted Part 4 of the series, which saw the aftermath of the group’s arrival at the restaurant, on April 5. And for the first time, one of the characters wasn’t played by Robinson.
Instead one of the series’ biggest fans lent his voice to the role of the elusive boyfriend — Puth.
Yes, that character was voiced by Charlie Puth
After posting Part 2 of her series, Robinson says she took a nap. Meanwhile, her mom, who has been on vacation out of the country, started calling.
“She’s calling me like 100 times, and she’s like, ‘Charlie Puth commented on your video,’” Robinson recalls. “And I was like, ‘No, shut up.’”
“I’m so invested in this…,” Puth commented.
After, they ended up messaging, and she outright asked if he'd be the voice actor for the Justin character. She says she was "so surprised" he agreed.
“I have no idea why this massive man in the music industry with 22 million followers would want to be a part of my ‘Group Chat’ skit,” she says.
The goal was to create a bit of mystery by not revealing the voice actor. But within 10 minutes of the video going live, Robinson says she noticed comments like, “Wait, is that Charlie Puth?” She says one TikTok user even made a video comparing clips of Puth talking with the voice of Justin to confirm they’re the same.
Once people caught on, Puth confirmed his involvement by commenting, “Why does Justin’s voice sound familiar …”
Asked if this guest role will turn into a regular gig, Robinson says the goal was to write Justin into just one episode.
“Obviously if he ever wanted to be involved ... of course he’s got the part, no question,” she says.
Plus, there might be more special guests to look out for.
“At this point, it seems like Charlie Puth might not be the last guest star for ‘Group Chat.’ There might be some more to come,” Robinson says. “Hopefully I can keep writing this forever, and hopefully there’s just a bunch of fun surprises in store.”
What's next?
Right now, fans are left on a cliffhanger, with Part 4 revealing that Justin had separate plans at that restaurant with another woman, who calls him, “babe,” in the final seconds of the skit, implying Hailey might have been trying to catch Justin cheating on her.
Going forward, Robinson hints that there will be a bit of a “redemption arc” for Hailey.
There’s one more video planned for the story of this fateful girls’ night out dinner, Robinson says.
“We are going to kind of get an answer about what’s been going on,” Robinson promises.
But she emphasizes, “Just because the dinner segment has ended, doesn’t mean the group chat is done.”
In fact, she says she already has storylines planned for situations like, “The Bachelorette” and “The Birthday.”
“We are keeping the same characters,” Robinson says. “But we’re going to change the scenario. And it might not always be Hailey. Because everyone has their annoying qualities.”
And fans shouldn’t have too long to wait. After “The Dinner” storyline has wrapped, Robinson says she’ll probably dive right back in.
“TikTok does not allow me the time to take a beat,” Robinson says. “People are finding my Venmo and requesting like one cent, but being like, 'What I’m actually requesting is Part 4.'”
