You Guys

You Guys is the name of my friend group. Well, it’s a somewhat retired group chat that we used to talk in constantly. I named it “You Guys” after noticing that we’d so often start our messages with a dramatic exclamation of “You guys!!” and then we’d launch into a little story.

Ex:

“You guys…. I just accidentally clap-emoji reacted to Ryan’s story of him playing the guitar.” -Me (Ryan is Alison’s gay ex-boyfriend. I’ve never met him.)

“You guys, Alf just texted me, what do I say back??” (A million screenshots to dissect.)

“You guys, did you see Mitch’s LinkedIn post????”

And so on and so forth.

I also just use the phrase “you guys” all the time. To me, it’s genderless. It’s just a group word in my eyes. But I was listening to part of a David Farrier podcast where he is talking about accents, and the hosts got into a discussion about using “y’all.” In my mind, “y’all” is always so Southern-sounding. And I know people feel “you guys” is very Northern-sounding. Anyway, one of the hosts was saying that he purposefully uses “y’all” because it’s all-encompassing and inclusive. It’s a way to address people without botching anyone’s pronouns. And I’m like, hey, that’s a nice idea.

I still think it’s particularly Southern, though.