How to issue your own emotional Bitcoin
The GoodFor app allows you to send IOU coupons that will have value and meaning. Or, at least, might make someone laugh.
Traditional forms of currency just aren't current any more.
They're made of stupid, old-fashioned things like paper and metal.
Everyone knows that real value can only be online, virtual and, at best, semi-sincere.
So along comes the iOS app called GoodFor, which allows you to create your own personalized, meaningful and even entirely insincere IOUs, good for as long as you decide they're good.
This emotional Bitcoin is the brainchild of Satoshi Nakamoto, who, I understand, worked on some very secret and emotional projects at many institutions such as the US Postal Service and Starbucks.
I'm sorry, I don't have that quite right. The GoodFor app was created by coupon company SnipSnap, which, for all I know, invented Bitcoin.
The SnipSnappers happened upon this idea when they realized that with their ordinary coupon app, people were trying to create their own versions.
So now you can use your creative skills to promise your lover four minutes of nuzzling every second Tuesday, or your dad the car keys for two hours every Thursday.
You can spend minutes choosing your backgrounds and borders before offering your religious guru the password to your Playboy video subscription for precisely 12 hours every month.
You can even send your ex an IOU for all the years you wasted her time with your Meccano set.
Yes, it's totally and utterly silly. But so are emoticons. And so is life.
The GoodFor app at least allows you to spice up your promises and hopefully encourages you to keep them, instead of what you usually do -- flush them down the drainpipe of your self-involvement.
Moreover, it gives the recipients a chance to have an artistic record of just what a good-for-nothing you turned out to be.
I can imagine that in future divorce settlement negotiations, lawyers will project GoodFor IOUs on large screens, in order to help prove that something was, indeed, promised and not delivered.
Exhibit 73: A depiction of hearts and flowers and the caption: Good For One Expression Of Affection Every 48 Hours. Was fulfilled only twice. In 16 years.
Here, then, is your challenge: show that you can create a work of art and keep the promise within it.
It's easier sent than done.