Hey there, I’m Mike. This is Mental Floss on YouTube and did you know that Iceland has
a very specific yet useful dating app? The population there is pretty small -- it's around
323,000 -- so the app ensures that you’re not related to the person you’re dating
using an Icelandic genealogy database.
That’s the first of many weird apps and games that you can download onto your smart
phone that I’m going to tell you about today!
Another bizarre dating app: Crowd Pilot. You can stream your date via your phone to your
friends, who can then help you with what to say if things get awkward. Like, say, if you
chose to stream your date... via your phone to your friends.
For when you can’t get someone off the phone, there’s Fake-an-Excuse, the app that plays
a sound like a siren or doorbell or killer bee attack so that you’ll have an excuse
to end the call.
Pimple Popper is a game in which you pop pimples on a cartoon face by squeezing your actual
fingers. There are also themed versions of the game for Halloween, Easter, Christmas,
and Valentine’s Day. How romantic.
A little less gross, but similarly weird is Shave Me! You try to shave a beard without
making the face bleed. There are even little tissue bits for when you mess up. You can
pay extra for a razor, tweezers, and shaving cream. Some of us are lucky enough to be able
to play the NOT-APP version of this game. /BEARD-STROKE
The description of the Pointless Game reads, “WARNING: This game is pointless.” All
you do is hold your finger on the screen of your phone. You get one point for each second,
making the game, strictly speaking I guess, not TOTALLY pointless.
A similar app is Hold On! in which you press a button for as long as you can. The high
scores are for multiple hours.
Another button-pressing game: 30 Second Life. For this one, you push two buttons as fast
as possible. Pushing fast enough will allow you to become something cool like a doctor
or a millionaire. Or maybe John Green. We should be so lucky.
The Punch a Hipster app is exactly what it sounds like. You get points for beating up
cartoon hipsters. You can also upload photos of hipsters you know to punch.
With Spirit Story Box, you can investigate the paranormal for just 99 cents. The app
tells you words associated with the paranormal energy it picks up from a place. For example,
one user went to a café and got the words “shin, engineer, using chisel, crow bar,
and harm neck.”
If you’re looking for something less specific, you can download an EMF Meter for your phone.
It will detect electromagnetic fields, just like they do on ghost hunting shows!
Equally spooky: the Death App. You just put your name in and it’ll tell you the day
you’re going to die and what you’ll die of. I got … 2015… Metal Floss Production
Mishap? UH OH.
Crack My Screen is a prank app that makes it look like your screen got cracked. Which
is probably fun…like one time.
Bowel Mover allows you to track your bowel movements. Plus, it asks how many cups of
water you’ve drank, whether your meals were gluten-free, and what the texture of your
BMs were. Unfortunately, unlike the Pimple Popper app, this one doesn’t have its own
built in Valentines Day mode, so you’ll have to solve that problem on your own.
And if Bowel Mover’s not enough, you can download Places I’ve Pooped, the app that
allows you to remember everywhere that you’ve pooped.
For fictional toilet use, there’s the iDragPaper game in which you unroll toilet paper as fast
as you can. This app also doubles as a simulation of what its like to be a cat.
The Toothbrush Fitness app times your tooth brushing while also displaying a 3D animation
of where you should be brushing and for how long.
Carrr matey is a simple app that helps you remember where you parked your car. But, it’s
pirate-themed. So, you don’t park your car -- ya dock yr ship an’ drop yr anchor.
Talking Tom Cat has over 390 million downloads. And all it is, is a cartoon cat who repeats
your words in a weird voice.
For something, a little more intimate, there WAS Passion (it’s now unavailable). You
would pull the app up and leave it on your bed while having sex and it told you how good
you were at it, on a scale from bad to perfect. Because why ask your partner when you can
ask your phone?
You might be wondering who would download an app like that? Probably the same people
who use the iAmAMan app. This allows cool guys to track the menstrual cycles of multiple
girlfriends. And they can have a different password for each lady in case one of them
catches them using it -- it’ll look like they’re the only one being tracked.
And when they get dumped by their multiple girlfriends, they can download the Watching
Cute Girl app, which contains video of a young woman who stares at you and sometimes says
something nice or asks if you want a hug.
Speaking of breakups, Breakup Notifier was shut down in 2011 after getting 3.6 million
downloads. The app would let you know when your crush had changed their Facebook relationship
status. But, Facebook put their foot down and blocked the app. They cited irreconcilable
differences as the cause.
iVooDoo is a virtual voodoo doll that you can stick pins in. And before you ask, yes,
you can customize the face.
You can set the iNap@Work app to make office sounds, so people will think you’re working
when you’re actually napping at your desk. The sound options include typing, mouse clicking,
and stapling. You can even pick which sounds you want played and how often.
CNN Money has named Zips Lite the #1 dumbest app. All the app does is let you zip and unzip
pants. Now THAT… is literally pointless.
It costs $4.99 to download the Cry Translator on iTunes despite its one-star rating. The
app claims to be able to know WHY your baby is crying and what you have to do to stop
it.
The Annoy-A-Teen app plays sounds at a high enough frequency that adults can’t hear
them, but it drives teenagers crazy.
The app iFrenchKiss claims it can rate your kissing skills by just having you... make
out with your phone. Please don’t do this. Phones are covered in germs. Especially if
you’ve an avid Places I’ve Pooped user.
Finally I return to the salon, which is clearly in need of a new fireplace app, to tell you
that the Melon Meter app will charge you $2 to access its amazing technology that knows
whether a watermelon is ripe or not. For it to work, you have to hold your phone mic on
a watermelon. Then, you knock on the fruit until it tells you to stop. Then, the app
will let you know if the watermelon is okay to eat.
Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube, which is made with the help of all these very
nice people. Let me know which of these apps you have downloaded. I would love to hear
about your experiences -- maybe NOT if you've downloaded The Places I've Pooped. My name
is Mike Rugnetta. If you like my face you can find more of it on YouTube at PBS Idea
Channel and if you like my voice you can find it on my podcast, Reasonably Sound. Links
to both of those things in doobly-do and HEY: DFTBA!