Delighting those who enjoy watching endless streams of photos and data flowing by a screen, several of the best-known social networking services have announced that they are merging to form the world’s largest waste of time.
Starting in January, users of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will be automatically redirected to LifeDrain, an exciting new website that’s the brainchild of hypnotist-turned-programmer Cynthia Espion. Once inside LifeDrain, users will be prompted to transfer all of their personal data and history from the other, soon-to-be defunct social networks.
According to its creators, LifeDrain will offer unprecedented ways of losing track of weeks, months and years — time that would otherwise be spent on useless activities like talking with other humans, picking up new hobbies, or going outside to observe one’s actual physical surroundings.
Espion, once as known as Madame Mandala in the stage hypnotist community, will serve as CEO and president of LifeDrain. She says that the service’s biggest draw is that it will shield users from the annoyances and distractions of off-screen life.
“In today’s world, a lot external agents are vying for your precious attention — pets who need to be fed, spouses who want to recount the dull minutiae of their day, or terminally ill family members who are selfishly demanding that you put down your smartphone,” Espion said. “By joining LifeDrain, you’ll effectively be building a fun, strong, almost impermeable buffer zone to keep such externalities at bay.”
To keep users safely fixated on the activity of their online social network, Espion says that LifeDrain will go beyond providing a non-stop flow of user-generated content to keep people occupied for the rest of their lives. She says that today’s savvy and demanding users don’t just want photos, videos and updates; they want to be able to interact with — and be totally immersed in — content in new and exciting ways.
Among other innovative features designed to burn up your time here on Earth, LifeDrain will provide the following:
Timeline twist
Toggle your settings to monitor your friends’ posts in real time, fake time, weird time, or in Einstein time to see how updates would appear on your newsfeed if you were an astronaut approaching a black hole at nearly the speed of light.
‘Like’ it again, Sam
Use the “double like” and “triple like” feature to show your fleeting approval for something again and again. Turn on the Wasted Life in Review option to look over the thousands of things you’ve ever “liked” or favorited during your many years on social media, and then decide if you want to “like” it a second or even a third time. It’s great fun — and a tremendous expenditure of time — to see how much your willingness to engage in a superficial act of acknowledgement has changed over the years.
A life in hashtags
These days, who doesn’t believe that all emotions, thoughts and experiences can be distilled into simple hashtags? Use the Hashtaggery tool to translate all of your and your friends’ life data into relatable, everyday hashtags. Pore over your new timeline and compare it to your best friend’s timeline. Whose hashtags are more meaningful? Whose are accidentally hilarious? Who cares! It’s just old-fashioned amusement. #LiterallyLoseFiveMonthsDoingThis
Blind mode
Going into “blind mode” will hide the names and photos of people in your network, leaving you the challenging and time-consuming task of guessing who shared a photo of a homemade avocado shrimp salad, or who just posted that she’s getting a divorce.
Mealstalgia
Take advantage of the Mealstalgia app to see what you and your friends were eating on this date last year, two years ago, or even ten years ago. Calculate the calories you consumed on Thanksgiving in 2007, or analyze your 2010 dieting strategy — all over again.
God mode
Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like being head of the NSA, privy to all the social media data in all the world? Go into “God mode” and instantly have everyone in your network. Sit back and take in the nearly six million videos that will be uploaded to LifeDrain every hour, and try not to laugh your head off at the estimated 10 billion hilarious memes posted every year. But be careful: if you enable this feature, you might one day find that 50 years have passed and that you can’t remember any of it.