WTF Is ‘Fexting’?

Harper’s Bazaar unveiled First Lady Jill Biden as its June-July cover girl via a series of glossy photos showing Jill posing on some impressive-looking stone steps and meeting people in her hometown of Philadelphia. Readers glean a lot about FLOTUS in the accompanying story in what the publication has dubbed their “Freedom” issue. Notably, that Jill’s a notorious practical joker, loves an ankle chain, and, most importantly, prefers to drag President Joe Biden to hell and back via text message. They’ve even coined their own term for it: “Fexting”—presumably a portmanteau for fight-texting?

While it might arrive as somewhat of a shock that despite everything transpiring in the country right now, the President has the time—let alone capability—to tussle via text, it’s true: The Leader of the No-So-Free World and his better half settle their disputes with emojis, reactions, and acronyms like STFU, probably. Politicians, they’re just like us—except for the obvious fact that they have the power to pass legislation that would improve our lives but don’t! America, amirite?

The Bidens reportedly first decided to “fext” back when the President served as Vice President to Barack Obama to avoid verbally sparring in front of Secret Service. Relatable! Apparently, the practice was successful because they’re still doing it despite the fact that every message exchanged will be archived for historical record.

“‘You realize that’s going to go down in history. There will be a record of that,’” Jill recalled of a reply from her husband to Harper’s Bazaar, in reference to a recent rage text she sent. She coyly added: “I won’t tell you what I called him that time.”

Hopefully, it was in reaction to him flashing a thumbs-up to a community mourning a mass shooting that tragically took the lives of 19 children and two teachers. Better yet, perhaps it was about his continued bait-and-switch regarding student debt forgiveness. Frankly, I’d like to imagine it was over his repeated refusals to abolish the filibuster and finally do something—literally anything—about the impending SCOTUS decision that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade. In all likelihood though, it was probably because he forgot to put the seat down again or he’s spending a little too much time in the ice cream room as startling amounts of children continue to die by guns. Anyway!

The message here is loud and clear: One of the only remaining freedoms all of us can enjoy is collecting our partners via text paragraph, so do a patriotism and pick a fight!