TikTok Favorite Sydney Jo Robinson Talks Bringing ‘The Group Chat’ to TV (VIDEO)

Damian Holbrook February 10, 2026, 12:20 pm

And just like that, we have a Sex and the City for the chronically online. And even Carrie Bradshaw would respect her TikTok counterpart’s hustle because Sydney Jo Robinson, the writer, star, editor, and producer of The Group Chat, came into the game without any experience behind the camera.

“No, not even slightly,” laughs Robinson, known as @thatgirlsydjo to the 1.7 million TikTok followers obsessed with her series chronicling the texts and sidebars of a female friend group. “I was a theater major, and I grew up doing theater, so I always was an actor, but really, my voice was always the thing. I was really always a singer first, [so] I had no training in editing or production or videography, any of it.”

“So it was a learn as I go kind of process,” continues the content creator behind every character in The Group Chat. “But when I was younger, my sister and I always loved to make I movies and do little things, so I feel like it tracks. But I definitely still had to learn a lot…I edit on TikTok still, which I’m told is insane.”

@thatgirlsydjo The Group Chat: a series #groupchat #friends #drama #tea ♬ original sound – Sydney Jo

That grassroots approach, mixed with a defined POV, sharp sense of self-deprecating humor, and a wildly relatable concept — who among us doesn’t have at least one group chat that could get us canceled? — has earned Robinson not just a massive fanbase that includes musician Charlie Puth and Hailey Bieber, but also accolades for creating one of the closest things to a linear television show on the platform. Each “season” she has produced centers on a specific storyline; there are cliffhangers, twists, clearly defined conflicts, styling changes to identify various characters (smartly placed phone-case stickers help!), even teaser trailers and post-season reunions. It’s like if the ghost of The WB network had a baby with the New Adult section of Goodreads and was raised on Real Housewives.

“I think every season it grows a little bit more,” offers Robinson, who could totally be played by a young Sandra Bullock. “And every season, I try to make it a little bit more ridiculous, where it’s almost like, why is this on TikTok? But it’s a full production. Traveling was part of that. Literally going to Costa Rica and going to Beverly Hills to film these, I think that was so crazy. And one of the things that made it feel like such a TV show. So I think every season I upped the ante a little bit.”

@thatgirlsydjo And that’s how you own Manhattan @Ryan Serhant @Owning Manhattan @Netflix #groupchat ♬ original sound – Sydney Jo

It’s paying off. Last December, she was nominated in the Rising Star category at the first-ever TikTok awards. She’s also collaborated with Ryan Serhant of Netflix’s Owning Manhattan, and in January, TGC Season 5 dropped with Hailey, Maddy, Jess, and Julia caught between feuding roommates Sloane and Alison, which bristles with that all-too-real discomfort of having to choose sides. So how close are these characters to the people in her off-camera life?

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“They’re close. Sloane is me,” she admits. “I think my sister knew right away…the dynamic between Sloane and Alison is really me and my sister, we’re so close.” As for the others, she confesses that “there’s pieces of my friends in each character and sometimes combinations of them. And then for Hailey, which is obviously, she’s sort of the problematic one, I had friends, or friends that I’m not so close with anymore [and] even my sister’s friends messaging me, like ‘Is this based off me?’ And I always give the same answer, which is, ‘If you have to think about it, that’s a you problem, and it probably means that you’re doing something that you know shouldn’t be doing.’ But a lot of it is based in real life.”

Obviously, the next step would be to take this thing to Hollywood, and fittingly, the multi-hyphenate is already at work on that one. “We’re in the process of making The Group Chat into a TV show now,” she tells us. “I’ve written the pilot, and I have a whole deck and a show Bible and all of that. And we’ve talked to different production companies, and we’re literally right in the middle of that process right now.”

Adding that the early reactions to TGC led to “a couple offers from advertisers like ‘Come write ads for us!’ and a couple of studios to come write TV shows,” Robinson is proud to have remained as loyal to the Group as the fictional, fractious Hailey should be sometimes. “I think right now this is sort of a dream, and I really want to focus on the thing that I created. I think that’s what makes it so fun for me, is that it’s mine.”