One of the things the Internet has revealed to us as it has spread through our culture is just how uncivilized, narcissistic, and manipulative we, in general, can be when it comes to our relationships.
Let me give you some examples of apps that underline this and are built on on social networking ...
Sometime ago I stumbled across a Web site that I can't believe hasn't launched a fleet of law suits: ExRated. Launched last year, the concept of the service is that you can anonymously post reviews on your ex's who are named in full along with gender, city, state, and ZIP and, optionally (and amazingly), the last four digits of their phone number!
Some ex- reviews are nice:
He is a nice guy but I met him in the wrong time so it was just not meant to be!
... while other are less so:
Mandy is a very smart and polite person. Caring and trustworthy. But, she got fat and not in a good way.
And many are far more damning:
I would have to be on a lethal dose of narcotics, and possibly ingest gasoline, before I consider even making eye contact with this young lady again.
And the latter is by no means not the most negative review I read.
To join you have to post at least one review (which, if you want to just check out what it's all about, can be completely fake) and then you can browse other people's ex's by name to see if that person you kinda like the look of is a raving maniac who'll steal your heart, set your sofa on fire, and drain your bank account.
OK, how about an iOS app that let's you fake a one night stand?! I am not making this up: The app is AppNightStand which explains that its purpose is to help you "Find singles on Facebook nearby. Invite them for a virtual one-night stand. Wake up together - the rest is up to you! It´s free, fun & safe."
You can send invites to your Facebook friends or to people who are supposed to by "nearby" singles (all of whom look unusually attractive).
This app (which is more extensively reviewed on Buzzfeed than I have the patience to) is free to install and free for your first 30 invites after which you can buy unlimited invites for $12.99 or "packs" starting at $0.99 for 50 invites ... should you think this app to be a good idea.
In an effort to not dive too deep into the gutter (this is, after all, Forbes) I shall refrain from reviewing a Facebook app called "Bang With Friends" (the Daily Beast has a NSFW article on this ...) which has reportedly acquired 20,000 in the four days following its launch in January this year! Some people might consider this to be liberating and a herald of a new morality but it's also manipulative and I'm not convinced that it's not going to have negative consequences.
That's just three examples out of hundreds (let me know which apps you know of and think are examples of this category) and there's nothing to argue that it's going to get any nicer out there in the future.
So, is this who we, collectively, are? Mirror-gazing, sex-obsessed, rivalrous, mean-spirited children who are driving civility into the gutter? Is the Internet responsible? Or is that really who we've always been?
