A new app, dubbed “Peeple,” claims it is a “positivity” app. The app, scheduled to launch this November, allows users to assign ratings and reviews to the people in their lives on a scale from one to five.
Go on a bad date? Give that person a one-star rating. “This person’s personal hygiene is not up to snuff! One star, would not date again.” Don’t jive with someone? “I find this individual repugnant! Just thought I’d voice it on the Internet for everyone to read.”
The app is being developed out of Calgary, but has made headlines everywhere – from The Guardian to Entertainment Weekly.
Of course, haphazardly assigning numbers to real people in the largely still-Wild-West that is the Internet is risky. The creators of the app claim that the ratings system is meant to promote “positivity,” but considering how people act on something as impersonal and anonymous as the Internet, that claim is naive at best and dangerous at worst.
Rightly, the app has provoked a firestorm of criticism from all around North America for its perceived enabling of potential cyberbullying. Having to worry about a number being assigned for every social encounter one encounters would change the way we interact with each other.
The app’s creators have (ironically) not reacted well to criticism. A picture posted on the official Peeple Facebook page likens the app’s creators to Theodore Roosevelt, who said, “It is not the critic who counts,” but, “to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
In a statement to WPIX, Peeple CEO Julia Cordray likened the uproar to people not understanding the concept.
“When the people found out that the earth was round instead of flat and that we revolved around the sun instead of the sun revolving around us, naturally people were upset and confused and they pushed back with all that they had,” she said.
Which is logic you could apply preemptively to any bad invention, really. I could tell you I had invented solar-powered shoes with built-in Wi-Fi and you could rightly tell me it had no purpose. “But are you considering that people once thought the world was flat instead of round? I’m a genius.”
The scary thing about the app is that you don’t even need to sign up to be rated. People can enter in your cellphone number as identification and proceed to issue you ratings (the app’s creators say only individuals who confirm their account will see the negative reviews show up, but it still feels invasive). If you’ve confirmed your account and someone posts a negative review, the “dispute” function kicks in – meaning you have 48 hours to “debate” the review with your criticizer. It’s like eBay, but, y’know, sinister.
“You left a negative review about my interpersonal skills. Maybe you just didn’t understand my motivations relating to my complicated past and my specific individual emotional needs.” “Don’t care LOL. 1/5.”
Brave new world.
