Babe? I can’t.
Because the world can be terrible and we are all doomed, technology is granting us Peeple, an app that will allow us to rate human beings the way we rate restaurants. Seriously: it’s Yelp, but for people.
No. Nope. No thank you. I refuse.
“You’re going to rate people in three categories that you can possibly know somebody — professionally, personally, or romantically,” the Calgary-based CEO and co-founder Julia Cordray told Yahoo. “So you’d be able to go on and choose your five-star rating, write a comment, and you will not be anonymous.”
Okay cool! So the actual worst.
Here’s how it works: you log into the app through Facebook (which I will never do, just so everyone reading this is aware: I evaded Tinder, and now I will avoid this) and provide your phone number to make sure you’re a real person. And then you can rate until the cows come home and/or your spirit dies.
Which, I mean, sure? I guess. Like, no and absolutely not, but maybe — maybe — there’s a reason behind this app that extends beyond “let’s make a 2015-equivalent of Regina George’s burn book.”
“You should have the right to know who somebody is before you invite them into your home, around your children,” Cordray maintained. “They become your neighbours, they teach your kids, you go on dates with them.”
This is literally the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
Like, I get it: we love rating things. Yesterday I took my first Uber, and my friends explained to me that you and your driver are both rated based on, well, I guess a whole slew of things. And that makes sense. You are picking a stranger up in your car and/or you are allowing a stranger to pick you up in their car, so it’s wise not to find yourself in an enclosed space with a living, breathing question mark. (Even though I trust no one, so I started memorizing everything about the drive in case this turned into a weird Bone Collector situation.) (I live a paranoid life, people.) But as much as I’d like to think Peeple will be used for reasons that don’t amount to power trips and bullying and the things that tend to turn us into legitimately bad people, I know better. We’re the worst. Humans? The worst. We can’t be trusted with this kind of technology. Comment sections are bad enough.
Also, what’s the point? Is this some hierarchy nonsense? What’s the end game? Is this Klout on steroids? Are we days away from becoming a bunch of walking numbers, subject to the mercy of our peers? Because I’ll tell you something: no thank you. I have bad days (a lot of them are bad, let’s be real) and am a person who will undoubtedly be rated 0.00000001/10 more often than not. The other day I was behind a terrible driver and finally shouted “moron!” out the window when I could finally pass him. That’s got to be a 2/10 moment, for sure. (Or 10/10 depending on how you look at it.) I mean, is this how The Hunger Games started? (Maybe.)
So I reject the Peeple app. I don’t want it. Get it away from me. I live for being validated via praise and feedback and editing and gifts and money, but I do not need numbers from any of you clowns. (See? I’m a 3/10 at best.) I don’t trust the human race enough to use this responsibility. We can barely get dressed in the morning. Yesterday, I saw three — THREE — middle-aged men riding their bikes on sidewalks. I think I saw a guy try to fight the gas station attendant. I stared down a cat caller. These are not our judges or juries.
Unless, like, I am the only judge allowed. Because you can all trust me, I swear.
