Slack is our favorite place for wasting time and sharing gifs collaborating with colleagues and peers, but right now (Wednesday 27 June) Slack is experiencing significant connectivity issues. It’s not yet clear what the cause of the outage is, but Slack are aware of the issues and working to fix them.
We're investigating connectivity issues for all workspaces, thanks for your patience, we'll have updates shortly. https://t.co/uQIDJzyLSV
— Slack (@SlackHQ) June 27, 2018
At around 6.30am PDT, Slack posted a tweet: “We’re investigating connectivity for all workspaces, thanks for your patience, we’ll have updates shortly.”
Another update just after 7am PDT stated “our team is still looking into the cause of the connectivity issues, and we’ll continue to update you on our progress.”
The best responses to Slack’s outage on Twitter
As you’d expect, with Slack down, people have been taking to Twitter. Fortunately for Slack, most of the comments weren’t actually that unkind or angry. Instead, they’ve done what anyone would do – make funny jokes and memes.
Here are some of the best from quick witted Tweeters in temporary exile from the messaging app:
"Slack is down"
Marc Chagall, 1931 #devart pic.twitter.com/kip67mi204— Vicki Boykis (@vboykis) June 27, 2018
when slack is down pic.twitter.com/SpNA1HADq4
— libby watson (@libbycwatson) June 27, 2018
Slack is down so I can’t share memes with my friends so have resorted to printing them out and leaving them on their desks. pic.twitter.com/xhg92anReH
— Dave Jewitt (@IrregularDave) June 27, 2018
editor: Slack's down.
me: pic.twitter.com/CdkvTZ0pWN
— Joshua Eaton (@joshua_eaton) June 27, 2018
Slack is down, so journalists can focus on their main job: tweeting.
— Jay Yarow (@jyarow) June 27, 2018
One user noted that now Slack was down, productivity might go up. The irony, of course, being that he was simply part of the wider exodus of part-time comedians and procrastinators to Twitter:
Slack is down. Worldwide productivity has just improved.
— Josh Naylor (@JoshNaylor) June 27, 2018
Some traditionalists thought that the outage might actually be a good thing for IRL interaction – once again, the irony of airing their thoughts in the digital environs of Twitter lost on them…
There's never been a better time to talk to your co-workers…IRL. #Slack pic.twitter.com/wX79hMN7j5
— The Muse (@TheMuse) June 27, 2018
Slack is down? It's ok…there's a new thing called "talking" to "people"
— Tanzina Vega (@tanzinavega) June 27, 2018
With Fortnite also facing a number of connectivity issues, some users were quick to draw parallels…
Both Slack AND Fortnite are down. What's even the point anymore?
— Josh Pigford (@Shpigford) June 27, 2018
Slack is down, Fortnite is down, what next?
— Captain Jack Coder (@minecoder) June 27, 2018
While the Slack outage is largely a carnival of memes and jokes, spare a thought for the Slack support team on Twitter. They’re truly doing a hero’s work. One Twitter user praised the Slack team’s service on social:
A bit of inside baseball: if you look at @SlackHQ's replies rn, you'll notice that the replies are coming faster than any one person is capable of making and they're not canned responses. That's bc Slack has a world class support org and everyone is trained on the Slack "voice."
— EricaJoy (@EricaJoy) June 27, 2018
However frustrated the media and technology world’s become with the Slack outage one thing’s for certain – no one’s talking about moving to Skype yet.
Read next:
Someone made a program to make it look like you’re typing on Slack when someone else is