No one can deny that mobile phones have been integral parts of our lives. Heck, they treat them like our lovers. They wake us up in the morning. They are the first things we touch and look at when we wake up. They accompany as when we eat. They stay beside us throughout the day and their messages determine our moods. They know every facet of our lives, including our most intimate thoughts. They are the last ones we touch and look at before we sleep. We sleep like angels in heaven when they spend the night beside us.
This is not surprising at all because mobile phones offer infinite choices, from apps to websites, that one can use for good or bad, which will also cause harmony or harm in a relationship.
One of these choices is WhatsApp. It is a messaging application that connects a person to anyone in the world with just one click of a button. And WhatsApp is the focal point of the cortometraje (short film) by Paco Caballero called “Doble Check”.
“Doble Check” refers to the tick marks on WhatsApp messages. One gray tick mark means the message was successfully sent. Two gray tick marks means the message was successfully sent and delivered to the recipient’s phone. Two blue tick marks means the message was read by the recipient. The title specifically means the blue tick marks.
The short film starts quite innocently where a couple hangs out in a bar. The guy starts that he sent the girl a message on WhastApp yet she has not replied. The girl replied that she has not read it. The guy claims that it had a “doble check”, that the girl was online at the time it was sent, and maliciously asks her to whom she was talking to at that time. As the guy hammers home his point, the girl grows more and more frustrated.
While watching, I was thinking, “OMG! The guy is an idiot! That is an inane question! They are together right now. They can just chill and talk like a normal couple! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!”
The guy proves to be a freaking idiot. At one point he shouts, “¡doble check es Dios!” (double tick marks is God!). Maybe he can date doble check instead of a girl.
In that same series of exercise, I learned the following abbreviations and meanings (in Spanish):
| Abreviaturas | Significado |
| Salu2 | Saludos |
| Hla | Hola |
| a2 | Adios |
| Ktl? | Qué tal |
| Xk? | Por qué |
| Bss | Besos |
| Mx | Mucho |
| Dnd | Donde |
| K qrs | Que quieres |
| X fa | Por favor |
| Q tpsa | Qué te pasa |
| t @ | Te escribo |
| tas Ok? | Estas bien |
| Zzzzz | Durmiendo |
| Ymam | Llamame |
I got 11 out of 15. I do not like abbreviating words in any language, so I am glad I got a double digit score.