If you’re a Gen Z’er, like me, you probably have stressed over why your Instagram post didn’t get enough likes, worried that your Twitter feed isn’t witty enough or even faked a smile in a photo to give other people the idea that you actually have it all together.
Here’s a new app to try for understanding your online persona: Peeple. The app was created by Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough. Cordray is a marketing professional and McCullough is a stay-at-home mom.
The app was created for parents interested in knowing who their children are interacting with online, single people trying to get information on their blind date or professionals looking at qualities of prospective employees.
Although the co-founders were thinking the app would be like an Angie’s List or Care.com, skeptics are calling it a “Yelp for people." The app’s Facebook page was flooded with backlash and Twitter users attacked the app’s premise before it was even scheduled to launch in November 2015.
Supermodel Chrissy Teigen expressed her disgust over the app on Twitter, claiming it provided grounds for cyberbullying.
It seems like the Peeple app is the premise of an episode of the television series "Black Mirror." The episode “Nosedive” uses a five-point scale, like the creators of Peeple originally planned. The episode follows a woman named Lacie Pound who lives in a world where your online rating dictates every decision you make in the hopes of a five-star review.
The rating is visible to everyone through a digital retinal implant. She is trying to earn a spot in an expensive neighborhood, but she will get a 20 percent discount if she raises from a subpar 4.2 to a 4.5. She is encouraged to seek out high-rated friends, and when she reconnects with an old friend with a 4.8 rating, she is asked to be the maid of honor at her wedding.
A good rating can get you a discount on a house, but a bad rating can leave you homeless. In thePeeple app, it’s not as simple as Lacie’s world.
Good reviews require three stars to be posted instantly. Bad reviews are left on the site for a full 48 hours for the reviewer and the reviewed “to work something out." People can be reviewed without their knowledge or consent. Users had the option of writing a recommendation for the person and inviting them to use the app.
However, the user must claim they know the person on a professional, personal or romantic level. The app requires the user to be at least 21 with a Facebook account and include the person’s cell phone number they are reviewing. Users can delete a recommendation that they don’t like, but it will still be on their profile until they delete it.
The developers responded to the backlash, but rather than shutting down the site, they gave it a few tweaks. Now, users will get full control of what goes on their profile, profiles can be deactivated, the five-point scale was removed and instead based the rating on the number of recommendations received. The backlash pushed back the launch date from November 2015 to March 2016.
Despite the criticism, 10,000 people volunteered to test the app. Those who want to use the app now will have to pay $1 per month. In spite of the major changes, Peeple was still faced with hatred. The critics started the hashtag #PeopleNotPeeple.
Cordray and McCullough claim the site doesn’t tolerate bullying of any kind. However, in the app store, Peeple is only rated 1.7 with 89 reviews. Most comments are from those who seem to not even use the app themselves but are rather insulting its integrity.
While Peeple is a people-rating app like the creators intended, it can unintentionally cause online shaming, which can have fatal consequences.
According to the Center of Generational Kinetics, 42 percent of the youngest generation claims social media has an impact on how they feel about themselves. 18-year-old Brandy Vela from Texas City was cyberbullied for her weight. She was so distraught that she shot herself in front of her family.
13-year-old Izzy Laxamana from Tacoma, Washington was the victim of her own father.
Her father posted a video on YouTube chopping off all her hair in response to the promiscuous pictures she sent to boys. Izzy then jumped off a bridge because of the cyberbullying she received.
Sites like RateMyProfessors.com show bias on both sides, and the reviews aren’t always genuine. Peeple can easily do the same. Those who have a vendetta against someone may use the app to just criticize those they hate. If this happens, Peeple wouldn’t be so truthful anymore.
If you really are sick of your usual social media sites and want to live straight out of a "Black Mirror" episode, check out Peeple on the app store.