Sometimes I look at all the Apple products in our house -- iPads, iPods, minis, iBooks, laptops, desktops, tangled balls of cords -- and I have iGuilt. How many Chinese youth have I plunged into despair just so I could play Words with Friends? All the crapple is an eyesore.
Despite my Apple-shame, I have a passion for my late-in-life hobby: developing apps. Since high-tech is not really my specialty, I mostly daydream with my head in the cloud.
But I have managed to develop a few. My first app was called "Really?" and it tells you where you were last night.
Another app is called "Like Wow." You download it, clip your phone to your belt, and every time you misuse the word "like," it emits a small electric shock. If, like, you use "like" to indicate a comparison it's like OK, but if you like use "like" as a refreshing nanolike pause in a sentence, you will, like, experience a jolt. If you fear electrocution and yet want to improve your elocution, you can program your app to charge an overusage fee. Wait, wait. There's more! Your fees can automatically be donated to the non-profit organization you have earmarked.
In one of my early test models, my own appalling overuse -- nineteen likes in a sixty-second period -- shocked me so much my hair stuck straight out from my head. Unsightly. I reprogrammed, and instead of jolts, my considerable overages were automatically monetized and sent via PayPal directly to GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network. They have been able to buy three Apple desktops for the office.
The latest app I have been developing out in the work shed of my mind is quite a stretch, even for me. It's very technical. I have been deep-data mining, massaging data, unsiloing, seeding clouds, feeding algorithms, biorhythms, I've-got-rhythms, and all kinds of metadata into the app's core program. John Poindexter would be impressed.
If my calculations are correct, this new app will tell me the exact moment white male supremacy ends in this country. Because there will come -- must come -- that tipping point. We wanted to call it "Honky Gone," but the brand is not trending well with our focus groups.
Interestingly, some younger white males in our groups seem almost relieved to be relieved of their position.The older white men? Like not so much.
It is a big project and may take a few more years to perfect. Sadly, I've got time. After the Supreme Court gutting of the Voting Rights Act and its non-affirmation of affirmative action, the George Zimmerman trial, the sugarcoated racism of Paula Deen, and the Dreamers as Indentured Servants Immigration Bill, it looks as if I've got a cushion.
In tests of a recent prototype, users checked so often to see if white male supremacy was over, they incurred huge cell phone bills.
There was a noticeable spike after President Obama's candid discussion of the personal and historical context of structural racism in the United States, but we could not determine if the response was hopeful or terrified. I need, like, more R&D.
Kate "App is for Appetite" is a humorist.