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Ugly Yelp-for-people app shows its beautiful features

Technically Incorrect: Peeple, the much-reviled app that was going to let you rate people, has taken a slight pivot.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


The Peeple app. It's all about positivity. How could you have thought otherwise? Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

The people at Peeple would like you to know that they are people people after all.

You might be familiar with this app. It caused something of a furor last week when it emerged that its purpose in life was to allow you to rate people, just as you rate your local trattoria.

We seem to rate ourselves every day in one way or another on social media, at least. There's even an app called Lulu where women rate their exes. But do we really want to be making comments about each other every day on a site that only includes comments about people?

Yes, viciously. At least whenever it serves you garbage puttanesca.

One of the kinder reactions came from model Chrissy Teigen, who observed on Twitter: "At least I signed up to have the world judge and grade me publicly. I f***ing hate this app and the boardroom table it was created around."

Now one of the founders, Julia Cordray, has taken to LinkedIn to say that we've all rated her app far too poorly.

She claimed that Peeple, due to launch in November, is actually a "positivity app."

She said: "Peeple is focused on the positive and ONLY THE POSITIVE as a 100% OPT-IN system."

Peeple is no different from Coke, really. It just wants to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

Or, as Cordray put it: "You will NOT be on our platform without your explicit permission. There is no 48-hour waiting period to remove negative comments. There is no way to even make negative comments. Simply stated, if you don't explicitly say 'approve recommendation,' it will not be visible on our platform."

Oh, it's a personal-reference-that-may-be-a-bunch-of-baloney thing, is it? That's alright then.

You see, you didn't need to worry that it would become like Twitter meets Yelp meets Hell on Digital Earth. How could you even have imagined that Peeple would be a peephole into the worst of humanity?

The Peeple site is currently down and there's still that tinge of suspicion that it's one big joke and may never see the light of day.

But if it does in the form that Cordray describes, I have a feeling that those still in touch with their essential human frailty might now be wondering: So what's the point then? But that's just negative thinking and that isn't allowed here.

I cannot confirm in any way that Hallmark is considering sponsoring the app.