What Fresh Hell is FourSquare?

by Marinka on July 6, 2010

Do you know from FourSquare?

My friend Issa blogged about the perils of Four Square.  I’m tackling its inanity.

Apparently, Satan himself came to earth and invented it.

According to its website Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things.

I know I’m super old, but I don’t know why “exploring your city” can’t involve something like walking down the street or going to a museum that you’ve never been to before.  But whatever.

So if you’re a FourSaquarer, when you walk into a restaurant or anyfuckingplace it tweets your location and announces that you have arrived.

I have no idea why anyone thinks that this is a good idea. Perhaps they have their own personal assassins or something and they want to make their job easier because god knows a frustrated assassin is not a good thing.

Or, maybe, as I suspect, they’ve just lost their mind.  It can totally happen in this heat.  First, mirages, then FourSquare.

Fr0m what I understand, one of the “fun” things about FourSquare is that you can “unlock badges” and “oust people as Mayors”.  I can only assume that this is some kind of codetalk for “freeing prisoners of war” and “finding my G-through-K spot”.  Because if it isn’t, these fuckers are just spamming the rest of us so that they can get a $1 off their Diet Coke.

I don’t get it.

What goes on through a person’s mind before they sign up for it?

“Everyone must know where I am at all times! This will add value to their life!”

How big of an egomaniac do you have to be to do that?

I mean, isn’t blogging enough?

One year ago ...

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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }

Andrea
Twitter:
July 6, 2010 at 6:11 pm

I absolutely LOVE this post. I am so 100% in agreement that I want to cry with joy at your eloquence. 😉 Thanks for saying what I’ve felt all along.

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Antropologa July 6, 2010 at 6:15 pm

I have never heard of this. Is this something people use on their phones? I don’t have a fancy phone. Even if I wanted people to know where I was all the time, anyway, god, it would be so boring. I rarely go anywhere. Maybe if I just said what rooms of the house I’m in? That would have some variety!

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Issa
Twitter:
July 6, 2010 at 6:17 pm

I’m outside your house looking in. #4sq. ;0-)

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Maria July 6, 2010 at 6:18 pm

I don’t use it, but most of the people I know who play don’t read or write blogs. I think when crossover occurs, it has the biggest potential to be annoying. Particularly over Twitter.

That being said, as a social media marketing tool for small businesses like mom and pop restaurants, it can be really effective. People like “winning” games even if the cred is as silly as a fake badge. But many small businesses have cool specials for people who check in X number of times, etc. So there is concrete benefits in that.

I don’t play though.

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deborah quinn
Twitter:
July 6, 2010 at 6:24 pm

of course, the upside is that you could know immediately that someone you despise (say, the movie exec who greenlit “Grownups”) is in your vicinity, allowing you to a) leave; b)put something nasty in his drink; c)post something socially awkward about his predilections for pictures of spam outfitted in latex underpants. Or whatever. Just a thought. Trying to make lemonades out of crazytown lemonade, here.

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Rachael
Twitter:
July 6, 2010 at 6:34 pm

I use yelp which all of a sudden has started that same foursquare madness. I’m not a fan. I do not care that I am the duchess of my local Starbucks. The sole purpose of yelp for me is to find restaurants that a lot of people have tried so I know if it could be good or not. I do not know about foursquare but you can turn all of that incessant nonsense that posts on your twitter and facebook off.

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Vicki
Twitter:
July 6, 2010 at 7:16 pm

I use it, but I definitely don’t link it to my Twitter or FB accounts, which is where you want to start to throttle people. It’s kind of cool if you’re in an area you don’t know to see what’s nearby or to invent new locations that no one has checked in at before, and to see if someone is near in at a given spot. For example, I created and checked into the Old Russian Jew Home for the Elderly when I was visiting my grandpa on Saturday and was disappointed that not more former-USSR babushkas were also checked in via iPhone.

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anymommy July 6, 2010 at 7:26 pm

This is why you shouldn’t spend too much time on twitter 😉

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P.K. July 6, 2010 at 8:02 pm

OMG, I was all excited when I saw the title because OF COURSE I know from Four Square, and I’m the Queen of it! Or should I say King, because that’s the best you can be in Four Square.

P.S. I’m old. And, apparently, completely and utterly Out Of It.

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Lish July 6, 2010 at 8:12 pm

I was hoping this post was going to be about how awesome those red rubber balls are and then lead into a dodgeball discussion. 🙁

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kimberly July 6, 2010 at 8:37 pm

Can I ask favor? I will be in NYC 7/13 -7/15… any recommendations for cheap eats? Breakfast too. Please. if you don’t mind. I will mostly be near Midtown.

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Cherilyn July 6, 2010 at 9:42 pm

Am I the only one who thought this was about the playground game with the ball and 4 squares painted on the pavement?

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Leadia Jarvis July 7, 2010 at 8:52 am

No…I did too. And IMHO it’s truly more perilous. It was the cause of much playground unrest during the school year.

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Kirsten July 6, 2010 at 11:15 pm

I am puzzled by FourSquare. If I was broadcasting my whereabouts all day then my husband would figure out I wasn’t at home all day cleaning and preparing healthy meals.

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amy2boys
Twitter:
July 6, 2010 at 11:37 pm

I’ve seen this FourSquare business tossed around, but was sore afraid to check out what it was, being severely overextended as I am already. So, this was helpful. I do not need FourSquare, clearly.

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amy2boys
Twitter:
July 6, 2010 at 11:40 pm

OH NOS! Next up in my Reader was this fresh hell:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/foursquare_launches_location_layers_-_this_is_big.php

It looks – pretty cool OH HELP ME.

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tracey July 7, 2010 at 7:06 am

Shit, that Four Square idea would have saved me OODLES of time at BlogHer. Whenever anyone finally found you, they would “foursquare” it and voila! No more mystery about your location. YOU would BE the location, Marinka!

“I’ve arrived at Marinka: Where’s mah mayor badge?!?”

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Issa
Twitter:
July 7, 2010 at 11:40 am

LOL Tracey.

I’m the Mayor of Marinka. Snort.

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melissa
Twitter:
July 7, 2010 at 7:11 am

i hate…HATE…foursquare yet i can’t help myself. i check in EVERYWHERE i go. and i wear my mayor badge of my manicure salon PROUDLY.
*hangs head in shame*

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Leadia Jarvis July 7, 2010 at 8:50 am

Um…where are you? Like rightthissecond. I’m sort of unsettled by not knowing.

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Whitney
Twitter:
July 7, 2010 at 8:51 am

I wondered why my cousins twitter always told me where he was eating dinner! As if I could pop down to Dallas and join him or something.

I live in NYC so that I can hide from others. I don’t want to be found. 🙂

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Loukia July 7, 2010 at 9:29 am

I hate foursquare… hate seeing all the ‘so and so has checked into starbucks… ‘ so annoying! I guess if I wasn’t on Twitter all the time I wouldn’t be so annoyed, but still, it’s annoying. And who needs to know where someone is at all times? Holy stalkers in the making!

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the mama bird diaries
Twitter:
July 7, 2010 at 12:48 pm

I don’t get it either. I don’t even want people to know what town I live in. Never mind where I am. Right now.

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anna see July 7, 2010 at 3:43 pm

Sounds seriously weird and stalk-ish.

Of course, I thought this post was about MY kind of foursquare. With a red playground ball.

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Kyle July 7, 2010 at 7:28 pm

I actually use Foursquare. And while the badges and such are fun, the part I enjoy are the tips and tricks. Things that aren’t on the menu, personal favorites, and things to avoid like the plague. I actually found a few good restaurants through it. It’s kinda like word of mouth for the “cell phones grafted to their fingers” generation.

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Denise July 9, 2010 at 10:36 am

I guess if you believe that Twitter is a bunch of people updating “what they ate for lunch”, then I guess I can get your 4sq point. I am on 4sq, but don’t update to twitter or FB, I only update to friends (within the 4sq app).

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