Fellas, You Should Call Your Friends and Say Goodnight

In general, we rarely take the time to call people on the phone anymore. But men taking the time to call their friends just to wish their friends goodnight? Wholesome!

All over social media, videos of grown men calling their friends to wish them goodnight are quickly going viral. An example below:

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The man on the other end of the line is usually taken aback by it at first, which makes it even funnier. Usually, they end up laughing over it together — the reactions have been greatly mixed. Some men ask their friend if they’re OK, checking in on their mental health, while some of them are greatly confused and even refuse to say it back! A lot of them have also been very sweet about it.

Turns out these guys used to do this with each other in high school, so they had a good laugh about it. I cracked up when the guy on the phone told his friend, “I miss your smell.”

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The guy on the phone says, “A grown man telling another grown man goodnight?” To which his friend replied. “Bro, just sleep tight.”

Most of his teammates responded with concerns, but in a funny way. “I’m not sure what type of shenanigans you’re on, but you’re acting real bonkers right now,” the first one says.

Truly love the way not a single one of these guys questioned it for a second. After his girlfriend posted this video, one commenter wrote: “You just sat there while he said goodnight to his baby girls.” Incredible.

All of these responses are comedic in their own way, and they’re all generating greater conversations about a hot topic right now: the state of male friendships amid a loneliness epidemic.

It’s true: a lot of men are feeling pretty lonely right now. As we reported last year, it isn’t exactly surprising. About 61% of Americans believe that having close friends is important, according to a survey from 2023, but 15% of American men said they have no close friends back in 2021. “It’s no secret that male friendships have fallen off a cliff in recent years,” reported our own Alex Lauer. “Just as it’s no secret that our larger sense of community has been disrupted by a variety of modern forces, from the accelerating pace of new technology to sweeping workforce changes. You don’t need a survey of 2,000 random Americans to tell you this.”

It’s nice and refreshing to see men be a little more vulnerable with one another, checking in on one another and laughing over something that may feel a little more sensitive or emotional to be doing with one of your friends. The awkwardness of the videos makes them really funny, but it’s also what I think makes doing this feel kind of taboo for the guys, whereas many women wouldn’t be as confused receiving such a call. It would be more of an unexpected treat, an opportunity to talk to my friends and forego going to bed for a bit.

I love the sentiment here, and I hope it’s something that keeps going viral. Perhaps men writing letters to each other should be the next viral trend that happens amid this friendship crisis.