"Wow, what a day, how was yours?"
"What's up?"
These highly uninventive texts are "designed to improve your relationship" -- simply program them to be sent out periodically so that you can tend to your girlfriend without actually, you know, having to tend to her. That's right, all you hopeless bros. The first tool for a busy bro has arrived, and there are apparently so many of you bros out there wanting to shrug off your women so you can hang with other bros, one is being downloaded every minute.
I'm using the word bro a lot because the tool is called BroApp ("your clever relationship wingman") and I'd like to emphasise how patronising it is to the male sex. It's also demeaning to the true nature of the "bro" relationship, as typified by such genuine loves as those shared by Frodo and Sam, Butch and Sundance, Maverick and Goose.
That's right, BroApp creators James and Tom -- you thought I was going to go all Daily Mail on your ass about its position towards women, what with the internet's tendency to be driven by mindless lemmings worried about sexism and stuff. ("People are very, very reactionary about anything that has a slight hint of sexism," James told me, by way of explaining his pseudo-anonymity on the app's homepage. "Also, we didn't want our real world identities tied to BroApp. i.e. Somebody Googles our full name and the first result in an article in the Daily Mail about us and this app we've made".) But you were wrong.
I'm going to nag you about your condescension to both sexes, and point out that the general public is perfectly capable of recognising a trend for attention-grabbing tripe in the same ilk as Carrot Dating and LoveRoom.
It isn't clever, and being an Engineering and Mathematics graduate (James) and a Master of Applied Finance (Tom), you should know better. You might as well be getting out of a car in front of the paparazzi with no pants on -- it's transparent.
What's wrong with the app? Where to begin. The idea that you have to tend to someone at all, rather than engage in a genuinely loving, spontaneous or thoughtful manner, is sad. James explains though, that there are just inherent differences (in his opinion) between the sexes that make this necessary. "I feel that there's simply an impedance mismatch (not sure if that's too much of an engineering term!) between the intensity of contact that a typical girl requires (obviously there are girls out that across the spectrum, but on average I believe this to be the case) and the intensity of contact that a guy will naturally supply. BroApp helps minimise that mismatch."
Mmm... yes. "Girls" (I assume you mean women, else this app is troubling on a whole other level) are needy, nagging pains, and guys just want to be left alone to hang out with their bros. What a wonderful cliché to base a business model on.
I rein in my outrage somewhat when James goes on to explain that the automated service is simply designed to spark natural conversation "between a guy and his girl". "For our own experiences, and from feedback we've received from testers, the BroApp automated message simply acts as a context around which a conversation starts," says James. "Guy is in meetings all days at super busy job. BroApp automatically sends a "love you :x" message at 1pm. Girlfriend responds, guy manually responds, girl responds, guy manually responds, bam, now there a legit conversation."
Wait a second... yup... there's the outrage again.
So what about women that have a hectic lifestyle and busy job?
They're planning an app for that too, apparently, SisterApp.
So what happened to the whole mismatch in the need for attention, and the average woman needing more tending too than a hibiscus -- they need a lot of water. I'm a "girl"; I know about plants and stuff, obviously.
His reason for the contradiction: "I'm not sure there's any higher order ideological reasoning I can provide other than: we've had feedback in-person, via chat, and email, expressing demand for a female -> male themed version of BroApp."
Ok, so basically your stereotype is wrong -- why can't you just say that and save me the trouble?
BroApp promises to never send your girl a message when you're with her, using its location service, and won't send out your preset message if you've recently been in contact. This is to avoid any undue discovery and associated arguments.
But what if she's, like, really sneaky? What if all your secret morning app-use and weirdly repetitive daily texts start to rouse her innate insecurities and paranoias? Do not fear -- BroApp has a tool for that. It can actually detect "inquisitive girlfriends" and prevent them finding out your secret. (Urgh, girlfriends with an inquisitive mind -- they're the worst.)
Users can secure the app with a passcode, then anyone that enters the wrong one will be shown a "decoy screen, making BroApp look like an app that's designed for helping guys to find great gifts to buy for their girls. This provides a layer of plausible deniability".
Wait a minute. Something's wrong here.
Isn't this app meant to be about opening up a healthy, two-way communication to better a relationship? Isn't there a bit of a disconnect in an app that promises this while encouraging you to deceive that same partner? "Users have the option to not enable a passcode. Users have the option to be 100 percent transparent with their partners about their BroApp usage. I'm not really sure any moral obligation falls on us to justify our users' actions. People have different world views. Some believe that having a healthy relationship requires 100 percent transparency into every part of each of your lives, others believe some amount of secrecy is necessary to live a fulfilling relationship. I don't really know either way."
A well-executed, complete and utter cop-out.
Now the app's only saving grace is the promise to help couples communicate when they're busy. But the thing is that doesn't really work unless the user personalises every message they send. In which case, why not just send one there and then? "I'm not sure that people asking this have worked in a high pressure, high hours, work environment," says James, who is currently busy studying for his PhD. "When you're at work with responsibilities, meetings, etc, it's often borderline impossible to have the time to pull out your phone, consider what you're going to say, then send a message. It often slips your mind when you're 100 percent involved with the task at hand. "BroApp lets you sit down when you're comfortable, write out some well thought out messages, put some time into it. And then when work is hectic you can sit comfortably knowing that no matter what happens, that message that you carefully crafted will be sent."
And then what? If you're so busy, you're unlikely to reply -- then there's no conversation sparked. You're just pre-programming your affection.
Now, at times I'm too busy to open a text from my husband. And more often than not he does the same when at work. Somehow we've remained happily in love without an external reminder telling us to tell each other we love each other. My god that would be sad.
BroApp is the kind of "innovation" that gives the future of automation a bad name. It's in the same ilk as NurseEye, the surveillance cameras that will tell nurses if old people have fallen down and definitely need their help, without them having to actually check up on them. Or the proposed Predictables tool that will scrape your social media to find out when your girlfriend's sad, then prompt you to send a loving note. These tools are worse than the Inevitable Robot Uprising, because they represent the damage we consciously do to ourselves.
And it gives progress a bad name. Better technology and automation is not an argument for slacking off on your human duties. And yes, sometimes when my husband ignores my calls I get annoyed. But he's annoying sometimes, as am I, and funnily enough we keep loving each other. You don't love someone for bits of their personality, what they try to be or how they attempt to manipulate you into feeling loved. You love them for their spontaneous love notes, probably said at the most inconvenient times when you're running out the door and can't reply; or the mundane little things that only mean something to you.
At least the pair behind BroApp know what it is they're doing, though. Although James says his girlfriend knows about the scam -- that's basically what it is, a love scam -- and still finds the messages a "surprising little romance", when I ask, "why not just launch this as an app for busy people -- are you guys purposefully marketing it in a provocative way?" James doesn't hesistate. "Absolutely, I don't think we'd get front-page Daily Mail if it was another 'sms scheduling app'."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
