With things like sexting and “Teen Mom 2” being so prevalent in today’s society, it would seem that immaturity and morality levels could not go any lower. It’s bad enough that our generation collectively glorifies sexual explicitness and egocentricity within our thoughts, conversations and behavior whenever possible, and yet, there’s always room for someone to push the bar lower.
So, naturally, that’s exactly what three people have done.
Within the past few weeks, a new Facebook app has been launched with the sole purpose of helping users find Facebook friends who want to have casual sex. There’s no longer a need to physically converse with another human being who you like because the app does the work for you, assuming your only goal is sex. It allows the user to privately notify a Facebook friend that they want to have sex, and then notifies the user when that friend responds back with a “yes.”
What’s the app called? What else could you call such a valueless, life-wasting app but “Bang With Friends.”
In the past, in order to come face-to-face with this kind of sleazy Internet garbage, you had to actively seek it out. Now, it’s being incorporated into the most popular social media website of all time. It’s like having your own personal pocket pimp, which might explain the contact email for the app: pimpin@bangwithfriends.com.
This app disgusts me; the name, in itself, suggests that sex is a totally trivial interaction to be had with anyone familiar enough to be considered an acquaintance (we all know how “genuine” Facebook friends can be), and reduces such an interaction to a childish euphemism. It fits the all-too-popular perspective perpetuated today that says the most important part of any romantic relationship, or of life itself, is lust.
Is our culture so numb and corrupt that we have reduced the most intimate, personal and significant relationship two human beings can share to the point of equating it with a “poke” or a “like” on Facebook?
Why do we continue to devalue these relationships so much in this culture? Are compassion, love or any real emotion within a relationship too “traditional?” Is self-control too “old-fashioned?”
The creators of the app, three college-aged students, must have been somewhat embarrassed; according to a Jan. 29 Daily Beast article, they have not released their identities to the public, and have even gone so far as blocking their registration information from being tied to the domain name. Well, I don’t blame them. The fact that someone our age even created such an app makes me embarrassed, too, that I am a member of our generation.
That same article included an interview with the anonymous creators, who admitted to being drunk when they created the app. Maybe that explains why it seems to be discriminately developed for men. The homepage of the app displays a half-naked woman on a bed with her shirt pulled over her head and the icon of a man sodomizing a woman, and a tab can be opened with an instructive illustration describing how to put on a condom.
Unfortunately, I will not deny that this kind of interaction happens very commonly in our society. But does that mean embracing, organizing and promoting it within social media is any more acceptable? No; in fact, I believe it’s exactly that kind of attitude that perpetuates these circumstances.
In any case, I sincerely hope this app is unsuccessful because if this is the kind of thing people waste their time on, their maturity level suggests they should be spending more time in high school.
