iPhone: The only thing better than using social media is not using social media. That’s why there’s Binky, which is sort of both.
Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Binky is an app that lets you go through the motions of social media (swiping on pictures, scrolling through pictures, commenting on pictures) without actually connecting with human beings. It’s an endless feed of pictures of things, from potato bread to Lynn Margulis.
The app mixes features of all different social media like swiping right on things Tinder-style and re-binking binks (“Do you want to re-bink this bink? This doesn’t do anything.”). When you favourite a bink (which is what they call their posts), an explosion of stars appears. Congrats!
#Binky all showing me the real meaning of popularity. pic.twitter.com/5tiq1FJErX
— andrea longuistics (@longuistics) June 15, 2017
It also gives you the illusion of choice by letting you type on a keyboard that generates comments with lots of hashtags and emoji like “so cool! somtimes i feel like i’m staring into a high-resolution abyss and its is turning my soul into pixels. but this is great. #emptylife #getitgirl #mfw” and “i dunno, i like this but its problematic ???? ???? ????.”
“Binky is just as meaningless as other social media apps, but it’s upfront about it,” said Binky creator Dan Kurtz to NPR.
Sometimes it feels like it’s doing too much, like letting you swipe left and right on binks and also being able to comment and re-bink binks. But that’s sort of the point: it’s the fidget cube of social media, giving you content to mindlessly scroll through without you actually having to log onto social media.
Sadly the app is only available on iOS, but will soon roll out on Android.
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