Do you hate people? Do you wish you had a social app that helped you avoid them? Scott Garner’s “Hell Is Other People” app does just that, helping misanthropes everywhere get a social beat on their pals so they know exactly where not to go.
Called a part-satire “experiment in anti-social media,” the app uses Foursquare check-ins to help people avoid their friends. “But couldn’t you just do this by yourself with Foursquare?” you ask.
Well sure, but “Hell Is Other People” actually does a lot of the leg work for you. It also calculates “safe zones” around your location, as well as “optimally distanced locations” where you can be sure you’ll avoid your friends, enemies and everyone in between.
Plus, the whole thing is kind of a joke anyway. Garner’s motives are less misanthropic, and more motivated by his admitted disdain for social networking.
But there is some interesting social commentary in there, too.
“You end up in places that have no meaning, but are far from your friends,” Garner told The Huffington Post. “If you think about how Foursquare works, it says, ‘your friends like this, so you might like this too.’ It has this homogenizing effect. You could see this [Hell Is Other People] as, ‘No one you like goes to this place, so maybe you should try it to break out of this social sphere you’re operating in.'”
You can check out “Hell Is Other People” at its official website here, or watch the video below to get the gist:
[iframe src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/7rKeq9pDKhQ” width=”560″ height=”315″]
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