Spencer Hu
shu2@uwyo.edu
If Tinder resides on this side of the not-quite-being-too-taboo line, then the Peeple app might just barely reside on the other side of that same line. Peeple most often is described as being “Yelp,” but for people. Users go onto the app and review people they’ve encountered in their own life, giving their assessment of the character of this person in relation to personal relationships, dating relationships or professional relationships. I can tell you that upon hearing about it myself, I didn’t quite know how I felt. I felt uncomfortable at least, conflicted at best.
It is my firm belief that everyone, without exception, cares what others think about them. The amount they care can definitely vary. I personally care a lot about what people think of me, not because I’m vain- well, not just because I’m vain. I think presenting yourself and having a good reputation are important for your personal vanity, but also really important in practical ways, such as getting a job. Believing this, the Peeple app seemed like a dream come true. I could finally find out whether or not the effort I put forth into presenting myself has been spent in the right ways. This was the case, until I thought harder about it.
This is an excerpt from the Peeple website:
“We want character to be a new form of currency. Peeple will provide you a safe place to manage your online reputation while protecting your greatest assets by making better decisions about the people around you.”
Everything this excerpt says conceptually, I agree with. It makes sense- with the pace that our present world moves at, it is terribly sub-optimal to waste time with people who won’t fulfill your needs. Then my analysis became serious. When it came to reviews of others, I believed in an infallible public that could always judge the quality of a person’s character without being biased. However, I couldn’t imagine the same to be true when I imagined myself being reviewed. Even though the app is all about people, and what they’re like, it feels rather dehumanizing.
Let’s look to Yelp. Any popular restaurant can have positive and negative reviews and any of these reviews can look very different. Reviews can range from a five-star review that describes every aspect of the experience to a one-star review that just says, “food sucked.” Yelp luckily, is self-regulating, so the illegitimate two word reviews are drowned out since a good restaurant will have way more positive reviews than negative reviews. The same cannot be said about Peeple. Restaurants and people in this context operate very differently, which is a weird statement to make in the first place. Restaurants have hundreds of people coming in and out of them every day. I personally don’t have hundreds of people talking to me everyday and even when I do, it’s unlikely that they can get a feel for the type of person I am, or the information needed to make a judgment about me that would be justified. Humans have so much more to them and what we value in people change from person to person. Humans are not restaurants.
I can already imagine getting a poor review because I’m nerdy and like video games a lot and that sucks. I can understand that interests are important in some dimensions of life, which is fair, but it’s still such a narrow view of me as a person. The fact that I like gaming can tell you something about me, but it tells you so much less than why I like gaming. In fact, someone who’s not into video games could look at a review of me and think to themselves, “oh I guess we’re not compatible,” when in reality we really could be. There have been many instances in my life where I’ve connected with people because of my love of gaming when they didn’t share the same love. My point is that people have depth and it is borderline absurd for anyone to believe they can properly understand the depth of another person and put it into words.
Of course, this is all speculation since the app is only in a testing stage. That being said, I can’t really see this app being much more than a toxic environment for people to hate on each other. If and when the app breaks into the mainstream, I’d be all for participating and seeing how wrong or right I was. Despite the many ways as I can see this going badly, I can’t deny my obsession with wanting to know how people feel about me.
