So you’re down in the dumps because you can’t think of any good ideas for software to build. You enjoy programming, and you’d like to build something cool to show off on your GitHub profile, but you don’t want to build yet another forgettable to-do app or grocery list tracker. What if I told you there was a whole genre of software where all the fruit still hangs low?

Memeware, a word I just made up, is software whose existence is a joke. A Memeware product does not exist to serve the needs of people; rather it exists as commentary on something else. Although the utility of Memeware is dubious, it’s an easy way to build something original.

In the spirit of Memeware I made the OK? programming language but I have some more ideas I want to share in this post.

Let us now descend into the realms of memery.

Social media platform designed to be toxic

Every social media platform like Facebook, Twitter¹, and the like, all claim to have altruistic goals like bringing people together, but despite the best intentions they end up being super toxic. And if you think the almighty Algorithm is to blame, consider that sites with less moderation and algorithmic influence typically end up being even more toxic e.g. 4chan.

If all this toxicity results from systems that weren’t designed to be toxic, wouldn’t it be cool to build a platform that was explicitly designed to be toxic from day one?

Here’s the central feature: Shadow Threads.

On any comment you can start a new comment thread which is invisible to the original commenter. Shadow threads can be nested so if Adam starts a shadow thread on Jack’s comment and Clyde starts a shadow thread on Adam’s comment, then neither Jack nor Adam can see Clyde’s thread:

- Jack: Wow great post, thanks for sharing. I'm actually building a solution to this problem myself over at jack-solves.com
    - Adam (shadow thread): STFU Jack nobody cares LOL
        - Chloe: I know right LMAO
        - Clyde (shadow thread): Adam loves telling people to shut up because he's a NEET and has nothing better to do

Shadow threads encourage people who lack the courage to directly confront somebody to instead openly talk behind their backs and invite others to do the same, sewing distrust and paranoia among commenters.

Dating app that plays on your insecurities

It’s hard out there in the world of online dating: what if we made it even harder? Dating apps know what league you’re in, but they never tell you. What if there was an app that weaponised that information against the user?

When a guy swipes right on countless profiles and doesn’t get a single match, the app can tell him “Wow, it’s crickets in the matches tab… you must be UGLY 🦧”. And when he resigns to indiscriminately swiping right on every profile without even looking and then finally gets a match: “Someone’s obviously been swiping blind! 😂😂👌👌”

And when a girl gets a match for every guy she swipes right on, the app can say “Look who’s popular! If only they were interested in your personality… too bad that nobody will ever love you for who you are 🤣💔”.

Okay, after typing that out, it’s occurred to me that not even Black Mirror would run an episode on such a sadistic concept, so let’s not make this idea into a reality. Anyway, moving on to something less twisted…

Anti-mortality reminder app

Apps like WeCroak occasionally remind you that you’re going to die, because that will encourage you to make the most of your life or something. Some mortality reminder apps also feature the ability to visualise the remaining time left in your life (aka a ‘death clock’), with each week represented by one square.

I’m somebody who doesn’t need an app to remind me about my mortality: it’s a topic my brain naturally engages each day anyway. What I need instead is an app that ‘reminds’ me that I’m actually not going to die and that I’m going to live forever.

I’ll be having a tough day at work and I’ll get a random notification from the app on my phone saying “Just a reminder: you’re not actually going to die: you’re going to live FOREVER! Get hyped!”. That’ll give me the motivation to push through whatever problem I’m dealing with, knowing that all my effort will have a big impact on future-me, given that future-me is going to be around for a long time to enjoy the fruits of current-me’s labour.

As a bonus the app can have its own death clock which is just an infinite scroll of weeks with no end. Imagine how good you’d feel scrolling through that, feeling that you really do have plenty of time on your hands so you may as well go slow and do things properly now rather than flit about with an existential sense of urgency.

Microsoft Word 2003 Remastered

Video game companies have started to work out that gameplay hasn’t gotten THAT much better over time and that an easy way to make cash is to re-release old games with a graphical overhall as a ‘Remastered’ edition.

How come productivity software doesn’t do the same?

Add high-res support, ray-tracing for WordArt, motion-blur on scroll, ambient occlusion on buttons, whatever it takes to lure in the millenials who feel their 4k gaming rig is wasted on early 2000s software, and just like that we’ll all be smashing out documents like we’re back doing last-minute school assignments at 2am.

Halo: Combat Evolved, but the guy’s name is actually Halo

We all thought that the protagonist’s name was Halo at some point until a friend explained to us that actually Halo is the name of the big terraformed ring world in which the game takes place, and the protagonist’s name is actually Master Chief. Well, now that AI voice manipulation is good enough, why hasn’t somebody made a Halo mod where they replace ‘Master Chief’ with ‘Halo’ in every audio file, so that we can go back and tell our childhood friend that actually, we were right all along.

Imagine if this scene was redone with the updated name. “Are you talking to me?”

That’s all my memeware ideas. What ideas do you have?

Footnotes