Idea for an ad campaign to back the new “Yelp for people” app Peeple: Because life should be more like a comments section.
The Peeple app is billed as a new breakthrough in transparency: Whether you like it or not, someone will be able to form a profile of you, and then it’s open season for anyone you’ve ever known to post their ratings of you. Ever been nasty to someone? It’s payback time.
Peeple co-founder Julia Cordray reasoned, to the Washington Post, “People do so much research when they buy a car or make those kinds of decisions. Why not do the same kind of research on other aspects of your life?”
Because of the self-selection aspect and the potential for grievous harm? Whether you do or don’t buy that toaster, or whether you thought the spring rolls at Thai Garden were overpriced, is of no great consequence.
Consider what is likely to happen with Peeple. Anyone who has ever read the comments section of a news story, especially an opinion piece, will have noticed that people who take the trouble to write down their thoughts for public delectation are a special breed. They tend to be attached to broken logic, ad hominem cruelty and free-floating rage.
Those who bother to rate you on Peeple are likely to be those who have a strong enough opinion to bother to log on, i.e., they hate you, and those who hate you most are likely to be people with whom you’ve had ill-fated romantic encounters. A better name for Peeple would be Dumpees, or maybe Reevenge. Scorned singles seem particularly likely to avail themselves of the app, because they’ll see it as a way to fight back against injustice.
Being an ordinary, friendly, well-adjusted human being is not going to cause people to give you five stars. If you didn’t make an impression, why bother rating you? But when you get a negative critique, and it sends your overall rating as a human being down, the only way to raise your score will be to nudge all of your friends to go on the app and give you a rave review.
Life is busy enough already. I don’t want to feel morally beholden to try to rescue the reputations of people I know. And how long will it be, one wonders, before we hear of the first “Peeple Suicide” committed by someone who didn’t enjoy being subjected to public humiliation? Those who have the most fragile self-images (i.e., the very young) are going to be at the most severe risk, and it’s also people of that age group who are most likely to be unable to suppress the impulse to lash out and try to ruin someone else’s life.
There is, however, one potential saving grace in Peeple: We’re told users will have to sign in under their own real names, so the shield of anonymity that leads to so much boorishness in the comments sections will be removed. If you want to trash someone, they can trash you right back. The whole thing could turn into “The Jerry Springer Show.”
Maybe that suggests an even better potential name for the app: Trashee.