This article examines a corpus of private text messages collected in Birmingham and surrounding towns in 2015. It looks specifically at pragmatic roles played by the vocatives found in the corpus. Since text messages are sent to targeted recipients, vocatives are structurally redundant, and the article reviews literature concerning vocatives in spoken and written data to first see what categories others have proposed for these functions. It then challenges some of these categorisations, identifying a new category of ‘focuser’ which is argued to be akin to a summons in spoken language. It also examines the pragmatic value of vocatives in performing identity work for both sender and receiver. It finishes by looking at gendered performance of identity as a case study in this corpus of how text producers construct themselves and others.