Tutorial Group 14: How Five Graduates Kept a Dead Group Chat Breathing for Two Years While Wishing the Wrong Man Happy Birthday

The Class List: Five Graduates, One Still Enrolled

Jun Kai: A Meme Account Nobody Follows

Jun Kai is the last soldier in a jungle who was never told the war ended. Every morning at 7.40am and every night at 9.15pm he fires a meme into this chat with the dedication of a lighthouse keeper warning ships that sank in 2024. A typical exchange, in its entirety:

That “ok” is the sound of a man reading his own seen-by list and finding four names and no laughter. He does not need a reply; he needs a witness and possibly a new group chat. He has posted the same Monday meme so often that this group now lives in a permanent Monday, and Jun Kai is its only resident.

Gabriel: The Forty-Eight-Hour Friend

Gabriel is a seasonal fruit. For five months of the year he does not exist, and then, forty-eight hours before a reunion, he bursts into the chat with the energy of a man who never left. His resurrection, word for word:

Time does not fly, Gabriel; it moves at a normal speed for people who reply to messages. He arrives, he hugs, he posts a selfie captioned “we should do this more”, and then he disappears for another five months without reading a single meme in between, which makes him less of a friend and more of a comet with a ring light.

Nurul: The Birthday Bot That Glitched

Nurul is the quietest woman in Singapore and the most punctual. She surfaces once a year per member, pastes the same birthday wish with the calm of a notary stamping a form, and sinks back beneath the surface like a submarine with a calendar reminder. Her greatest hit:

This year, on Jun Kai’s birthday, the machine glitched:

He thanked her. The man whose birthday it actually was thanked her for wishing somebody else, because it was the first thing she had said to him in a year and he was not about to waste it. Nurul never corrected it and has not typed since, so her last act in this chat was the wrong name, delivered with total confidence.

Kavitha: The Press Release Nobody Requested

Kavitha does not tell her friends things; she issues statements. Every message opens with “Excited to share” or “Humbled to announce”, as if the four people who watched her eat cup noodles in the library at 3am are now shareholders awaiting quarterly guidance. Her finest press release:

She nominated herself, announced the nomination and then thanked her friends for their support, which they had not given. Kavitha also uploaded this chat, presumably expecting a glowing reference, so let the record show that she treats her four oldest friends as a press pack and herself as the headline. She is not a member of this group; she is a LinkedIn post that learned to double-text.

Shi Min: Peaked at a 78 in 2022

Shi Min is the only member of Tutorial Group 14 who is still, emotionally, in Tutorial Group 14. Every few weeks she drags the chat back to a single presentation from 2022 that scored 78, and each time she tells it, the 78 sounds a little more like an Olympic gold:

Highest in our hearts. Kavitha tried to correct the record, and Shi Min simply moved the record somewhere it could not be checked. She defends a B-plus like a war veteran defending a beach, and she keeps photos of the library on her phone the way other people keep photos of their children. Two years after graduation, her greatest achievement is still a group project, which is the academic version of peaking at your own kindergarten concert.

Saga One: The Reunion Resurrection

The group has managed three reunions since graduation, at S$48, S$55 and S$61 a head, and Gabriel attended all three while being absent from every month in between. In January, forty-six hours before the booking, he rose from the dead again, and Shi Min, who has kept this chat’s attendance register for six years, was not having it:

That 👍 is Nurul’s most expressive contribution of the decade, and she spent it on Gabriel, which tells you everything about who in this group gets attention. Kavitha, meanwhile, announced her own attendance at a dinner like a celebrity confirming a festival slot. The dinner happened, everyone screamed, Gabriel took a selfie, and at 11.50pm he posted it:

“Safe home everyone” was his last message until August. In spirit, Gabriel, is how people attend funerals, and that is exactly what this group keeps holding: a memorial dinner every few months for a friendship that died in 2024, with Gabriel as the guest who only turns up for the buffet.

Saga Two: Something BIG Coming Soon

On 2 March, Kavitha announced that something big was coming, and then did the one thing no press office has ever dared, which was to wait four days for questions. Shi Min took the bait, Gabriel materialised out of thin air to congratulate her on nothing, and Jun Kai deployed the only meme he owns about waiting:

Gabriel congratulated her on a secret. He had no idea what it was and did not ask, which is the purest form of the friendship this group runs on: maximum enthusiasm, zero information. Four days later the news landed, and Kavitha had been promoted from associate to senior associate at the same desk, a reveal outdone in suspense by most bus timetables.

It got a heart from Shi Min, a second congrats from Gabriel and a Monday meme from Jun Kai, on a Thursday. Kavitha replied to all three with “thank you for the overwhelming support 🙏”, a phrase that has never before been used about three reactions and a cartoon frog. Nurul read it within the minute and said nothing, which, coming from her, is basically a standing ovation.

The Dean’s List of Shame

The Lighthouse Keeper Award goes to Jun Kai. Guiding ships that sank two years ago, twice daily.

The Comet With a Ring Light Prize goes to Gabriel. Visible once every five months, gone before dessert.

The Wrong Name, Right Confidence Medal goes to Nurul. One sentence a year, and this year it went to the wrong man.

The Self-Nominated Award goes to Kavitha. She would have nominated herself for this one too.

The 78 Marks Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Shi Min. A B-plus, defended like a world record.

The Longest Funeral in Singapore goes to the whole group. Six years, one body, and everyone still RSVPs.

The Final Grade

You guys did not stay friends after graduation; you stayed enrolled in a module that ended in 2024. Jun Kai keeps the lights on, Gabriel visits the grave twice a year, and the other three send cards. Tutorial Group 14 is not a group chat, it is a memorial with a meme feed.