Reapr
Everyone gathered in the living room. The crowd formed a crescent around a small pocket of floor space against a wall. A projector beamed white light against it. There was no image.
Arnold walked through the crowd towards the space, headed by laughter and applause. When he reached the faux-stage, the crowd laughed. He was in a black turtleneck, blue jeans, white sneakers, and wire-rimmed glasses. He grinned. The light from the projector beamed on him. He downed what was left of his beer, and put it on the ground.
“Alright! Alright,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road. First off! Holy shit, thanks for coming guys.” A few people whistled and clapped. Arnold took the scene in.
“I wanna talk about something that uh…is generally considered uncomfortable,” he said. “But I don’t think it has to be. Personally, anyways. I want to talk about death! The big KO. I — and we, all of us — are going to die someday. We know that. I mean, we might not understand it, but, we…we know that, right? And I am afraid of that. Speaking for myself. I am afraid of dying. I think a lot of people are, and I think it’s because of the uncertainty. I don’t like thinking that despite my best efforts, it can all end,” Arnold slapped his hands together, “because of a bus accident, or a…whatever. Because of something. But we all have to do it. Rich, poor, fuckin’ this or that, we all have to die. Javeed?”
A pause, and the projector changed. The white light gave way to black, and a red scythe flickered on the wall. Above that, white lettering faded in — Reapr.
“I understand that his might seem a little morbid,” Arnold continued in the dark, “But hear me out. Our lives are online now. Our pictures, our location, our medical records, our police records. The amount of information about us that’s available is insane. I mean, how many people in this room alone sell that shit for a living?” A good five or six people clapped. People laughed. “Right. So check this out,” The projection changed to a picture of a web of squares, each square filled with bullet points, connected to others by arrows. “All this data has been around for a good two decades. Two decades of income levels and movie preferences. Here’s another fact: an average of something like 151,000 people die every day. But alllll that data doesn’t go anywhere. It just sits, uselessly…” Arnold smiled, rolling his finger to the audience. “Until now,” several people droned.
“You gotta have the until now,” Arnold said. The projection changed to a sketch of three phones, each with pages of an app laid out.
“Reapr is a way to access this data, and make a projection about your possible demise,” he continued. “There are a lot of questions, and for every question answered, the result becomes more precise. This leads to a pretty easy gamification.” The projector changed to a close up of one phone. The question What Is Your Blood Type? was dead center, followed by a list of options, including I Don’t Know. There was a skip button on the bottom.
“This is an example of a useful, but super boring question. However, questions like this,” the question on the projection changed to How Many People Have You Had Sex With?, “Are much more interesting. It sort of goes back to those old Myspace surveys. The app asks questions, sometimes obviously pertinent, sometimes not so obvious. The more questions answered, the higher percentage of accuracy.”
The imaged changed to a different sketch. This time, three icons appeared with percentages underneath: A broken heart, 74%; A bug, 15%; A crushed car, 11%. “This,” Arnold said, “Are the most likely ways I will die. Statistically, I have a 74% chance of heart complications, a 15% chance of cancer, and an 11% chance of a car accident. All of these came from answering a hundred-and-two questions, and comparing my answers with the millions of data points available. Click on any of them, and you get a list of worldwide stats on that subject, plus ways to avoid it. Lower your cholesterol, things like that. This would also allow for, uh, partnerships with different health and safety companies.
“The real beauty of this app is that it scours data, but also creates it. People ask questions, and now we have that answer, which can be fed back in. Reapr becomes more accurate, and uh…who said they sold data?”
The joke got a few laughs, but not many. The crowd swallowed. Arnold clenched his jaw.
“So, uh, as this is a release party,” the projector changed to a slide showing a wifi name and password, “Here’s the information for our wifi! Reapr, as of this evening, is officially available on the App Store! We’re working on Android, but uh, you guys understand.”
No one really moved. A few people had started talking in the back.
“But yeah, so…That’s Reapr! Thanks for coming!”
Everyone applauded. Arnold gave a sarcastic little bow, and took the Steve Jobs glasses off. He walked into the crowd. A few people patted him on the shoulder. The wifi password illuminated the wall. People typed it in, and went back to drinking.
