Earlier this week, I had one of those moments where you see a headline or a snippet from an article and immediately react "Yes!" Further, as you read beyond the headline, you find yourself nodding in agreement. This reaction was spurred by Dalvin Brown's recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, titled, "If a Friend Bills You $4 for a Favor, Are They Really a Friend?" The article looks at the practice of requesting payment via apps such as Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App and the impact such requests have on relationships.
I had such a strong reaction to the piece because one of the unexpected findings from a recent research project (see here) focused on college students' uses of Venmo, specifically their use of the app's social stream, was the strong feelings about payment requests. Without prompting, nearly all participants shared how troubling the practice of payment requests can be. Many simply stated that the practice is "So rude!" As an older user of Venmo, and a user rarely finding the need to make payment requests, I struggled to understand the rudeness behind asking for re-payment. (I must note that my collaborator, an undergraduate student, completely understood and agreed with our participants' reactions.)
Apparently, such requests reveal the strength (or weakness) of relationships. Further, there is some insider/outsider tension surrounding the decision or need to request payment. Participants described elaborate ways to workaround the payment request via Venmo through the use of texting or alternate apps to make the request, to ignoring requests (and the sender), and to setting guidelines before payment. In particular, as Brown notes, requests of smaller amounts, say under $5, are particularly troublesome: "Asking for small amounts of money can make us feel small. So many of us let it slide when, say, we pay for parking (and gas) when driving friends to a concert. Technology has removed that barrier, making it easier to nickel-and-dime friends and acquaintances. One point of debate among users is when a request seems reasonable, and when it seems miserly."
While these apps are not new, the social norms or "code of conduct" for their use have not been fully developed. Across college campuses and settings occupied by young professionals, the phrase "Venmo me" has become commonplace. However, the complicated social networks underlying the phrase result in a transaction that is more than financial; it is also rhetorical. Users of such apps, in turn, must consider, develop, and practice rhetorical strategies for negotiating digital and mobile payment apps, including payment requests, as well as the social stream at the center of Venmo. At least in the case of Venmo, payment is both social and rhetorical. As Lana Swartz concludes in her book, New Money, “Venmo is quietly altering the everyday rhetoric of payment. Venmo is not a wallet; it is a conversation” (132). Unfortunately, as Brown points out, many of these conversations are one-sided: "The impersonal nature of after-the-fact Venmos have people rethinking what's a friendly gesture, and what's a billable cost."
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