SEATTLE: Sykik Technologies (creators of Lookout Express, a hate-mail application) have announced the public release of what they're hailing as the first ever large-scale anti-social networking service: GetOuttaMyFace-Book. The service offers a host of features that allow a user to articulate the sheer magnitude of his/her loathing for a specific person or community, or humanity in general. GetOuttaMyFace-Book promises its users a world where there are no rules or pretences, where they're free to throw insults at people they don't like, and where they can even participate in a bloodless fistfight to 'discover once and for all who the pillow-hugging sissy really is'.
Shirley E. Will, CEO of Sykik Technologies, says that there's a very real sense of rage sweeping across the online world, brought on by the mindlessness that frequenters of social networking web sites are subjected to on a regular basis.
"We're just capitalising on that anger, stoking its flames and giving people a place to release it in its full glory. There's a real market for anti-social networking, and that's not even a bad thing. GetOuttaMyFace-Book, or 'Goff-Book' as the cool kids are calling it, gives you that much-needed outlet that lets you yell at people for something that's not their fault. We all know how satisfying that can be."
When asked about how she planned to capture market share from the likes of Facebook and MySpace, Miss Will hastily replied that Goff-Book was not a replacement for these services. "Quite the contrary, in fact. We want people to get so tired of Facebook that they'll give Goff-Book a try. We need Facebook to survive. Think of it as the relationship between Windows and anti-virus software."
Goff-Book is built on a set of constructs completely opposite to those found in run-of-the-mill social networks. For instance, instead of a friendly 'wall' where your friends can leave you messages, you're given an 'electric fence' that 'electrocutes', i.e. insults, anyone who tries to post anything on it.
Popular third-party applications designed for Goff-Book include LocustVille, a game in which you play a scheming antihero who develops new ways to destroy farms that arrogant characters lovingly maintain. In one campaign, the player can release a plague that among other things, turns all the cows on a farm into dishes of beef sauté.
Goff-Book helpfully organises all your contacts in a foes-list that you can expand in several ways. Given your e-mail ID and password, one option automatically imports the e-mail addresses of the people who promise to make you rich with minimal effort and to increase the effectiveness of your genitals. It then sends foe requests to the selected users, like the one shown in the image below.
Perhaps the most ambitious (and a slightly weird) option encourages you to 'make new enemies' by connecting you to a random stranger's profile and letting you express precisely how far up their posterior you consider their cerebrum to be.
For many, Goff-Book may be a welcome break from the increasingly dull and sappy world of social networking. One user who preferred to remain anonymous told the Loony Bean that he had opened a Goff-Book account after Facebook informed him that one of his friends (imaginary quotation marks with fingers here) had found an overly cute homeless iguana wandering a fictional island and requested that he provide said creature with shelter."
This is what an iguana looks like", he said with some heat, showing us a photograph of a rather hideous reptile. "It doesn't have imploring eyes the size of saucers as Facebook seems to think. Seriously, would you want to adopt one of these?"
Several other users were more displeased with services like Twitter that they say, fail to block useless, offensive tweets that no one could possibly want to read. The recent onset of the Football World Cup has been greeted with slanging matches on the popular microblogging site, in which one side endeavours to prove the sportive supremacy of their team, by engaging in a verbal assault regarding the dubious parentage of the players on the opposing team.
"And it doesn't stop there either!", according to another frustrated Tweeter. "How many pseudo-suicide tweets from crestfallen Argentina fans can you stand before you actually start wishing they were dead? We're decent human beings as a rule, but there are things out there that cross our limits too. Things that make us want to have people to vent our frustrations on. You know, some virtual brain-bashing here, a little choke-you-until-you-turn-blue-and-die there..."
Sykik describes Goff-Book as the long-suffering Facebook user's way of saying, "No, I don't want your teddy bear or the two-dimensional flowerpot you oh-so-thoughtfully sent me on my birthday. I don't want to know what you've been growing on your virtual farm. And for pity's sake, quit poking!"
Let's face it: we all have our moments where we want to claw someone's face out, but can't because it would be considered impudent. GetOuttaMyFace-Book may well prove to be a viable solution in those moments.
(My apologies to Mr. Affleck. But I do want you to know that you suck. Please leave comments, everyone - I like reading them :) )
