I spent yesterday hyperventilating with laughter and hooked on a new Facebook app that brought me hours of good fun. At this point, you have probably done the exact same thing and “What would I say?” has now become one of your bookmarked web pages.
If you have no idea what “What would I say?” refers to, I highly suggest clicking on the hyperlinked URL. But only if you don’t have anything important due the next day.
“What would I say?” has become the latest Internet app sensation, generating Facebook statuses just for you. When I say “just for you,” I mean that every computer-created status takes its words from past statuses you have posted on Facebook, even going back to your middle school days. Developed by a “hackathon” team at Princeton over the weekend, the site was initially set up completely for fun. By now, the site’s reach has become so immense that its creators have added a small message at the bottom urging users to donate to typhoon relief efforts in the Philippines.
Needless to say, the hackathon team has created a formula guaranteed to bring you laughs and plunge you right into the depths of procrastination. It will reveal everything from your most profound thoughts (“Told to hand in Paris’ gentrification and how language impacts politics”) to your most pressing priorities (“Go Spain! <3 and Harold and Kumar! Whitecastle!”), as well as some cryptic thought processes in between (“swam with cat GO OH LA,” I assume the last three words were from Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”). Aside from hours of irresistible fun, the app takes you through a stroll down memory lane as the most cherished or, in my case, dreaded statuses from your young days gradually come to life (“Jersey Shore, welcome back I have no friends”).
So if you’re stuck trying to come up with a witty, clever, smart and all-around winning status, “What would I say?” will be worth your time. Otherwise, you can still spend hours scrolling through all the possible things your Bot-self would say, laughing all the while.
But as a final warning, don’t become too obsessed with the site: My Google Chrome won’t actually let me access the app now since I refreshed it too many times yesterday. As punishment, I’m relegated to stalking my Facebook newsfeed, watching my friends laugh over their own generated statuses while I can no longer join in on the fun.