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Apps Apt to Make You Apoplectic
We look at some startups—and name names!
By Ed Goldman
Is there a trend among U.S. startups to select negative names for their companies? How else to explain “Yahoo,” “X” and “Babbel?” Let us parse together.
In Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” the Yahoos were crude, filthy, erratic slobs. In the 1970s and ’80s, calling people (lowercase) yahoos was equivalent to calling them (lower expectations) morons.
Missing one’s calling
In TV commercials of the 1950s and ’60s, “X” was always preceded by the word “Brand”—it was a way of referring to a competing product without risking a lawsuit. (Now you can make comparisons between your product and your rival’s by name, as long as you present the information in a factual manner—e.g., “Sugar Frosted Flakes contain more sugar than Cheerios.”) Today, X is the app formerly known as Twitter. I’m not sure Elon Musk’s changing it was an improvement, though it did seem odd to post scientific data on a platform whose name contained the word “twit.” To Brits, a twit is pretty much the same as a yahoo.
“TikTok” always struck me as an oral signal you deploy when someone’s telling a boring story. It may be a little less insulting than closing your eyes and pretending to snore but the message is similar: Move this along!
“Babbel” and “Discord” are odd name selections for a language-learning and gaming community app, respectively. Babbel’s soundalike Babel was the name of the tower in the Old Testament being built by apparently non-union infidels. They hoped to erect something high enough to reach what they perceived as God’s penthouse. Whereupon God, not big on drop-ins, made all of them suddenly start speaking in different tongues. Unable to understand each other, the result was chaos and—you guessed it—Discord.
I do think, however, that it’s logical for Facebook to have changed its name to Meta, the latter being a term that means self-referential. The site could just as easily have changed its name to ego and no one would have been any the wiser—especially not the twits nor yahoos.
Anyway, in this spirit of negative naming, here are three new apps you may want to load up your phone with:
1. IMBECILE. While it may sound odd to install an app called that in a supposedly “smart” phone, its name doesn’t imply its intuitiveness. IMBECILE is a gathering place for people who want to share examples of idiotic behavior with a likeminded community of snobs. The site will accept photos, illustrations, charts and internal government memos that meet a very low bar of suitability. While it carries paid advertising, this is a free app; I mean, just how stupid does it think we are?
2. BLAH-BLAH-BLAH. This device, which might have been the original name for TikTok or Yahoo, collects political speeches, news-panel show transcripts and book club discussions (before and after the white wine is poured) to spark online discussions about its content. Those chats are subsequently transcribed via A-I and distributed to IMBECILE. We believe in synergy. Also harmonic convergence, but only among consenting adults, and not in all states.
3. KARMA-CHANIX. This is a language-teaching app for those of us who know absolutely nothing about automotive repair, including how to change the oil, put air in the tires and operate the rear-view video cam. (The last is especially problematic if you think your car has one but it’s just a dash-mounted illuminated photo of your cat.) KARMA-CHANIX teaches you to sound knowledgeable when an actual repair person is talking circles around you, saying words like differential, crankcase, OEM parts (original equipment manufacturer), crankshaft and the suggestive serpentine belt. You won’t be told what these things mean (why bother?) but instead will be provided with these all-purpose replies:
(a) “But I had that replaced not long ago.”
(b) “I was told it still had a good five years left on it.”
(c) “Yeah, I thought it might be the differential. As a kid, I was kind of a motorhead.”
(d) “I don’t mean to second-guess, but did you check the Discord hose?”
Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).