Flock U and Flock U, Too
The real question is: ARE YOU READY TO RAGE? This is what the obviously middle aged creators of the new app Flock U are asking college students across the country. Flock-U is a mobile system that uses your Facebook contacts to track your friends’ locations as they move from pre-bars to bars to parties and even to after-hours.
The description on the iTunes store reads, “Stop wasting your time asking around and texting friends of friends to see what’s going down tonight.” The creators instead suggest using the app to find where your friends are going for the night, “with one press of a button.” It seems likely that the guys who invented this app are also the ones that mysteriously show up at peoples birthday dinners without an invitation, or as Dane Cook calls them in the notorious “friend nobody likes” routine, the “Karens” of the group — gosh, Karen!
The app has multiple features for your friend-tracking needs. You can set your status as either going out or staying home, and see what other “flockers” are doing that night, too. The app also uses your location and tracks what bars and clubs are in your area. You can then mark yourself as not going, there, or going, and see what other friends are going to be there. This is a useful feature that allows you to simultaneously keep track of your roommate and avoid creepy Kevin from freshman year, all with just a quick tap of the oh so cleverly designed “F U” icon. Another feature on the app that is semi-less stalkerish, is the “create” feature. You use your location to set up an event and then either make it public or invite only. This is just like setting up an event on Facebook, except with the added thrill of exact GPS coordinates, which creates an interesting twist for users in the Syracuse area.
Flocking might not make much sense at a school like 'Cuse, where bar options are limited. Plus, it would probably get heavily abused by freshmen boys trolling Euclid (moo). For schools in cities that have a wider range of more spread out options of nightlife, it could come in handy. The app has not, however, been blowin’ up college campuses like it probably intended to. But, with T-shirts available for purchase right off the app that sport catchy phrases such as “get flocked," I'm sure it will in no time. Who wouldn’t want to wear a shirt that cues mental images of dozens of pigeons or a 12-year old who is scared to actually say fuck?
On the bright side, at least we have yet another digital device to stalk our friend’s every move. First Instagram, then Snapchat’s “My Story,” now this — what’s next, a sanctioned GPS tracker for all? Big Brother, I’m on to you.