School friends reunite online and reunite class 20 years later

They met at a neighborhood school, in the south of São Paulo, in the 1980s and 1990s. Some attended the institution from nursery to high school, others only spent a few years there. After leaving school, each went on with their lives. It would be the same as with most school classes. However, social media changed the end of this story.

In 2004, when Orkut arrived in Brazil, some of the former colleagues met in communities of the old school, Colégio Anglo Brasileiro. Then, they migrated to Facebook, and connection networks expanded, with the site’s algorithm suggesting possible contacts thanks to mutual friends. More recently, they started following what others were doing via Instagram. So, little by little, the old friends were getting back together.

Until, in 2015, a chance meeting accelerated the group’s reunion process. “I was at the maternity ward to see my newborn niece and I came across an old friend from school, Eduardo Melo, who was there because of the birth of his third child. It was so cool! Then came that desire to meet the guys again”, recalls publicist Renato Schouchana, 38.

Melo, 38, started calling all his former colleagues with whom he had contact to a Facebook group chat. He gathered so many people that they thought it would be easier to create a WhatsApp group.

Each one who joined the group was bringing someone else and, in a few months, the class was complete. “The group reached 45 people, but some were leaving. Now we have about 30”, says Juliana Piazza, 37, a public servant.

The conversations rekindled the desire for a personal reunion, which took place in January 2016, at the bar of one of the group’s members.

At the time, Piazza lived in Sorocaba (100 km from the capital), but he made an effort to go to São Paulo to see old friends. “Everyone worked really hard to get back together,” he says. The first happy hour lasted until two in the morning.

Until the beginning of the pandemic, the class managed to arrange two meetings a year. For lawyer Juliana Suter, 38, even with online conversations, seeing friends in person is essential. “One of the risks of networks is that people are content with them.”

Although she doesn’t consider herself a big fan of WhatsApp groups, she guarantees that it was worth joining the school’s class group. “I was on a trip when they added me and suddenly I had over a thousand messages. But I started reading and it was a delight; I laughed to myself as I recalled the stories”, she says.

According to Suter, in the group there are two categories of people: those who remember everything and those who remember nothing. “I’m one of those who remembers everything. It’s very nice to see that other people who lived through those situations also kept everything in their memory, who remember the moments the same way you do.”

Since the rapprochement, former colleagues have created new connections. Schouchana gained a partner, Rafael Prada, 39, one of the members of the gang, with whom she set up a podcast production company. “We got closer, discovered many affinities, personal and professional”, says Schouchana.

Even marriage has already left the group. The couple had one child, but recently separated.

A difficult moment for the class was the death of one of the colleagues, in 2018, because of cancer. “She was a very dear friend; she went to all of our meetings. Even the last one, when she was already undergoing treatment, she wore a scarf on her head. It was good to have met someone we liked so much and to be present in her life when least for the last two years”, says Piazza.

In the pandemic, the owners of the Anglo Americano college ended up deciding to close the institution’s activities and sell the property, in Vila Clementino, which was demolished to make room for a residential building. The ties of those who studied there more than 20 years ago, however, still stand.