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Banter Chat/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET
We are all, at heart, schizophrenes. We emit every last element of our lives to Facebook, while at the same time being shocked that we have no privacy.
We insist that the world knows about our every last emotion, when in fact we really just want to cuddle with a single lover and blubber.
So along comes Banter. This is an app that allows you to chat anonymously about the very subject that’s on your mind at this minute. Users can jump in on public chatrooms or create their own private chatrooms, without revealing any personal information.
Launched at this year’s SXSW, it was allegedly a rip-roaring success. The app’s creators describe it as “like Reddit, but real-time chat.” However, now it needs to push itself into the wider firmament.
Should it simply stand on its merits? Should it elicit a celebrity endorsement? Banter decided on an outre mixture of the two.
It claims in a new spoof ad that it’s found a way to isolate the sorts of images that the perverse send to the unsuspecting.
Yes, Banter claims to have developed a Genital Recognition Application Prototype.
Some might say society has needed this for some time.
For Banter, however, its private capabilities allow users to exchange what it politely calls “more sensitive content.” So this prototype is, to its mind, essential. Or, at least, essentially humorous.
Clearly, a difficulty with this lies in privacy itself. So many apps, like Snapchat, promise certain perfect aspects and then seem to deliver them in a slightly less perfect way.
Oh, you know we said your Snaps disappear? Well, what we meant is they don’t.
Here, though, you’re treated to jokes about grandma’s vegetable garden, Brett Favre and, with breathless predictability, Anthony Weiner.
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As you view this, you must decide whether Banter is the perfect vehicle for your inner thoughts and deeds. You must decide whether this is exactly the hole in your life that needs filling.
After all, Banter requires no private information of you to get started. You can get right on it and be yourself.
Or, indeed, someone else — that other self that you keep hidden for special occasions.
Now you can be your other self every day of the week and meet others’ other selves.
And together you can talk GRAP.
