I was organizing my brother's birthday, and most people involved use Whatsapp (I don't). Instead of being the asshole again and trying to get them use telegram or IRC, I decided to adapt, and bridge whatsapp with telegram and IRC, so I could lead the group from the comfort of my setup. I use matterbridge for this.

The only caveat with whatsapp is that your only way to interact with it is using the web access, and that require the "official" application running in parallel. So for that, I setup the VM with whatsapp started, just so it can relay the messages from the bridge.