The Drop

                                              Lets “Drop” the act: social media is a stain

Toronto Star Editorial column

by Lou Amy

Few would argue against the impact social media has had on our lives. Children post. Teens tweet. Young adults smash. Adults share. These acts have become so engrained in our lives and have manipulated our entire routines of life to a point of ethical and moral dilemma. People are more obese, on average, than any other generation in existence. This has lead many officials to question the use of technology like cellphones and laptops and how early child rearing should introduce these tools. There’s no doubt technology has changed the name of the game, but to what degree of impact do we start worrying about its effects, particularly on our mental health as well as physical health?

Thankfully, that level of concern has reached its boiling point with the release of The Drop - the latest app from developer Mapple - which quite horrifically simulates a death of your choosing.

In what world does a tech developer think it appropriate to create an app that showcases such macabre evil? Who in their right mind would want to see themselves dying - over and over again - with a near unlimited set of kills?

Quite a few people, it turns out. Estimates place consumers in and around the three million mark - peanuts compared to the entire population of the world, but startling in its sheer conjecture of content. What possesses someone to download an app, knowingly, that promises to show them “a creative way to die?” Once downloaded and opened, the app asks you to take a full selfie of yourself. It’s processed. Then, you’re presented with a screen that asks you to choose your preferred method of death.

Hanging seems to be the most desirable choice. True, it’s the entire theme the app is built around. But the twisted minds of Mapple have made it their insidious intent to offer a variety of voracious kills that you can choose from. A shiny guillotine portends a severed neck. A suicide vest is set to detonate ten seconds after hitting start, just enough time to position yourself in a “cute pose” ready to face your Judgement Day. And that’s “just the beginning (of the end)” as advertised on their home screen.

Privacy issues aside, this app raises concerning points surrounding our mental state of mind. Not only is it horrifying to think someone at a dev party could have dreamt up this horrific nightmare, but we are willingly participating in it, too. Tech giants have kept quiet on their insistence to keep selling The Drop on their online stores. To date very little has been done to combat this troubling “game.” We need to consider our position on technology, like, yesterday. Because today is certainly too late, and I certainly don’t need an app to show me how the world is going to end.

“Your dad doesn’t understand shit!”

The angry voice belonged to Ellery. She was walking home diligently with her friend Jaclyn from Barton High. Their grad hoodies were blowing in the light autumn breeze as the afternoon sun bore down on them through colourful trees. The wind flung specks of yellow, orange and red leaves across their path. It muffled their discussion as they walked.

“He understands more than you know,” Jaclyn said of her father. “He is a professor at BU.” BU was what the locals and alumni called Barton University. Apart from the high school, Barton also had a bustling university culture. Students often came and went in hordes. Cluttering the streets of downtown with their cliques and communes of young, energetic souls.

“Yeah, of science. He doesn’t get our generation. I mean, ‘I don’t need an app to show me how the world is going to end?’ Come on!”

“He’s been following this stuff for years,” Jaclyn said. “There’s always some merritt to what he’s saying.” 

“It sounds pretty reactionary to me.”

“Well then that’s how you read it.”

“So you believe him?”

Jaclyn remained silent.

“Don’t be a hypocrite Jac. You use social media just as much as all of us.”

“I’m not denying that,” she said. “But he’s right about The Drop.”

“You’ve used The Drop.”

“Keyword, used.”

“But still used. You still downloaded it and checked it out.”

“And then I deleted it and cleared my phone.”

Ellery shrugged. Her silver hair was tied back in a tight bun and hung nestled in the hoodie of her sweater like an egg in a nest. Her arms hugged her bio and geography textbooks. Both she and Jaclyn had been best friends since grade six. Their shared love of nature guided them down this path of environmental courses. Biology and sometimes Chemistry, certainly not Physics, but Geography and Environmental Studies as well. 

“Your father is from another time, Jac. He doesn’t get us.” 

Jaclyn didn’t feel like arguing today. Thankfully, her house was just around the corner. Meridian Meadow was an affluent neighborhood, coloured only by the variety of leaves that scattered the streets and gutters. She and Ellery had been hiking this route for the better part of a decade, and as such knew it with their eyes closed. Neither of them had seen anything out of the ordinary in all their years walking the streets of Elm, Carlyle and Joan. Here, the neighbors were kind. They were vigilant and aware. Watching through shuddered windows and prying into the lives of passersby. In this the residents of Barton reveled. Ongoing stories in the daily soap opera of the suburbs.

“See ya Jac. Let me know about Thursday night. I can drive.”

“Will do,” she said, and she was off.

The house was empty when she went in. It sent a shiver down her spine, startling her just how much of a temperature drop came from the outside, in. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around, she thought? Colder still was the hallway she entered from the front door. It was like ice.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. She was in her right mind to continue cursing her parents, especially after realizing the cause of the frigid air. The kitchen window was open. Wide open. And Jaclyn watched with disbelief as papers flew in every direction around the room.

“Dammit,” she said as she threw her bag to the side of the hallway, running for the window. For years it had given the Amy’s a migraine. It stuck, it squeaked, and as she pulled it shut, the mesh screen tore ever so slightly more with wear and tear. 

Things settled. Jaclyn assessed the damage: only a handful of papers lay scattered on the floor. She picked them up and returned them to their proper place. Now what? she thought, looking around the room. Homework wasn’t an option. Too boring. Her sister wouldn’t be home for another two hours. Netflix was a possibility. Too much commitment. 

Her phone was the next best thing; she pulled it out of her pocket, unlocked the screen, and tapped the folder marked “Social Media.” There she found the usual drag of apps. 

What followed next was a ritual she committed every time she checked her phone. A lowdown of the broadcasted lives of Barton’s best. Talia posting about her morning latte. Gabriel posting a photo of his dog, Jed. Sam with his girlfriend, Jane. Jane with her parents. Her parents posting a picture of last year’s family vacation.

And so on. Jaclyn became enveloped in the lives of her peers. The fellow Bartonites that looked to social media for assurance and pleasure. For news and ideas. They posted of pleasures. They posted of pain.

Ping.

The sound startled her. The top of her screen flashed with a black textbook. The ping was far more pronounced than her ringtone allowed. She tried to turn down the volume, but to her dismay the volume was already off.

Ping.

This time, the sound annoyed her. Jaclyn knew the volume was off. She triple-checked the sound bar - most definitely off. Yet there was the sound again, and with it came the same black textbox at the top of her screen.

Update available for The Drop. Tap here to update.

Jaclyn’s eye furrowed. She could have sworn she got rid of the app. In fact, she knew she had, because she wiped her phone to the factory settings after her father preached about the dangers of privacy. 

Annoyed, Jaclyn searched her screen for a shortcut to the app. There was none. She went to her settings and surveyed the list of apps - most of them she never used - but found nothing. No sign of The Drop.

Nothing except the black textbook still lingering at the top of her screen.

Out of curiosity, she tapped it. 

At first nothing happened. The blackbox disappeared, but Jaclyn could feel the phone trying to do something. It was instinctual. Something the 21st century consumer had a sense for. When technology stopped but something was loading.

Eventually the screen turned black and Jaclyn recognized the now iconic logo for The Drop. A skull and crossbones. How original, she remembered thinking at the time. But now she only felt annoyed. Why was this thing still on her phone, and why was it asking to update?

Finally the home screen loaded. Jaclyn recognized it right away. It was a simple design. A white background with a shadowed corpse hanging and swaying back and forth. The options were clearly listed for ease of use.

Death Selfie

Saved Deaths

Messages

Options

Jaclyn studied her options. Before she could make a choice, a bar at the top of the screen commanded her ability to tap, and it flashed:

Update initializing…

“What the hell,” Jaclyn muttered to herself. Her eyes were glued to what was happening on the screen. It was odd. The app seemed to be updating in real-time as it loaded. The listed options collapsed. The dark, dead figure was pulled up from the top of the screen, and the white background faded into black. But it wasn’t a dead black that stared back at Jaclyn. She knew what it was she was looking at. Or looking through, more precisely. It was the lens of a camera. Her camera, on her phone. The update seemed to be getting rid of the menu option altogether. Instead, users were now faced with a simpler construction.

Now, consumers were invited to take pictures right after opening the app.

Jaclyn quite liked this design, she had to admit. It intrigued her. Something about it felt new and fresh. Gone were the incessant notifications and annoying options that meant nothing to nobody. Now The Drop allowed you to take selfies right away as so many other apps were well-designed to do.

But Jaclyn soon remembered why she was so annoyed to begin with. The app was bugged, even after the update, because the app failed to even ask if she wanted the update to begin at all. This concerned Jaclyn, if only a little bit. She wasn’t sure why, but it just didn’t sit right with her. All of a sudden Jaclyn felt like she wanted out of the app. To close it and never open it again. So she did. She tried closing the app. She searched again in her settings through the list of apps but found nothing about The Drop.

The only piece of evidence left on her phone was a black textbook at the top of the screen that read The Drop was updated successfully. 

“What’s going on…”

“Jaclyn?”

The voice startled her. It was her sister, Megan.

“Meg? You’re home already?”

“What do you mean? It’s 4 o’clock.”

Jaclyn checked the time and was stunned. Two hours had gone by. Two hours of...what? Searching social media? It couldn’t have been that long.

“Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Megan asked. She dropped her bag on the island with a thud. The contents of her bag spilled out from the top and rolled along the granite. Megan was at Barton University for graphic design, and as such the content of her bag was filled with stationary and design tools.

Jaclyn stumbled with her excuse. “I uh...I don’t know…”

“Are you high?” Megan leaned over the island and stared directly into Jaclyn’s eyes.

Jaclyn pushed her sister away. “I’m not.”

“Everything good?”

Jaclyn raised her cell. “Something’s wrong with my phone. Do you still have The Drop?”

Megan and Jaclyn were sisters. With that bond came a proximity that heightened their relationship above their parents. Secrets came and went with fluidity between them. When The Drop was released Megan and Jaclyn immediately followed their friends and downloaded the app to try it out. One of its features was a location manager which pinpointed your exact location to every other consumer of the app. One night, as Jaclyn was testing its capabilities, she noticed that a red dot appeared next to her location. Not hers, but just next to hers. Right away she knew. Megan had downloaded the latest trend to try it out too.

Since then it remained a secret between them.

Because of this, Megan hesitated an answer. “I do,” she replied bashfully.

Jaclyn sighed. “I deleted it but it’s not going away. It’s still updating.”

Megan pulled out her phone. She navigated to the app and studied its options. “Did you try uninstalling it right from the app?”

“Yeah. I wiped my phone, too. Nothing.”

“Why did you get rid of it?”

Jaclyn looked to her sister. She read her question as little more than accusatory. “I don’t want it anymore,” she said simple as that.

“Because of dad’s article?”

Jaclyn paused. Tension bubbled between them. “No, not because of his article.”

“Alright,” said Megan. “But you’re missing out on some cool updates…”

“I don’t care,” said Jaclyn. “I just want it off my phone.”

“Well I have no idea. Get a new phone.”

Jaclyn chuckled. “A new phone. Right. That’s an option,” she finished sarcastically.

“I don’t know then, Jac. Do whatever.”

Megan was flustered. She scrolled through her phone. It was annoying how invested Megan had become with her phone as soon as she pulled it out but paid little attention to her sister in front of her. Eventually she left for her room, leaving Jaclyn alone in the kitchen as the autumn sun began its descent. 

Once night had veiled the street in shadows Jaclyn called Ellery from her bedroom. Her parents had texted her saying they weren’t going to be home for dinner and that they should reheat the leftover chicken in the fridge. Jaclyn opted for cold cuts and an apple. Megan failed to present herself at all for dinner.

“Maybe you should just get a new phone,” Ellery said on the other end of the line. “If you’re so worried about it.” The tone of her voice was belligerent. It didn’t care. Jaclyn knew that she and Ellery served with separate philosophies. She was more open, vocal. Jaclyn was more shy, introverted. Sometimes it upset her. In an age when everyone was expected to be passionate, happy and comfortable in their own skin, Jaclyn felt like it was particularly hard for girls like her to exist. Because if she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t always comfortable in her own skin. Her legs weren’t shaped the way her friends’ legs were. She didn’t play sports. She wasn’t active. Her breasts had taken more time to develop and were still smaller than some of the grade nine girls’. And the hair. Not just the pubic hair, somehow that seemed more natural - more normal. No, she was self-conscious about the hair that was visible. The fine hair upon the hand that held the phone that took the picture. It was that hair, the hair that hung loosely in bristling black strands upon her arms, that caused a good bit of shame within her. Sure she could sugar them. That was always an option. But there was evidence now on social media of her arm hair. If suddenly she posted a picture without that hair the world would take note of her insecurities and that was infinitely worse.

So what was she to do?

“I don’t know,” Jaclyn said softly. 

“Knowing you you’ll probably just leave it,” came Ellery’s unhelpful response. “Why don’t you just try it out again? Seriously, it’s not as bad as your father’s making it out to be. It’s fun getting dropped. Plus,” she added, "the update lets you create an avatar of yourself. So now you can choose different outfits to die in!”

“Really?” Jaclyn said, unenthused.

“Haven’t you always wanted to die in Gucci?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Try it. You’ll love it.”

Then came a sudden and thunderous banging from downstairs.

“What was that?” said Ellery from the other line.

“You heard that?” Jaclyn said, heart racing.

“The whole fucking town heard that. Did someone break in?”

Jaclyn became horrified. She wondered if Megan heard the noise. Silence confirmed she hadn’t. Phone in hand, Jaclyn slid off of her bed and walked down the hallway past Megan’s room. The door was ajar. The room was empty. 

“Meg?” Jaclyn called softly. 

There came no response.

“Did you hear that?”

There came no response.

“Hello?”

Silence. Jaclyn walked past her room. Her window was open and the curtain waved gently in the breeze. The moonlight cut through the darkness and painted an expressionist scene in the dreary bedroom.

An emptiness filled her soul with despair.

“She’s not there,” said Ellery. It wasn’t a question. Her tone became equally morbid. “Maybe you should call the police.”

“I’m gonna check downstairs.”

“Can you hear anything else?”

Jaclyn listened. There was only silence.

“Nothing.” Jaclyn turned the corner to the stairs and saw the kitchen light on. “Meg?” she called downstairs. “Megan?”

She descended. The warm yellow light invited her into the mouth of the dragon where she continued to call for her sister. It was with embroiled tenacity that she entered that kitchen space which suddenly wore the veil of insidious anarchy. There was a puddle at her feet and it reeked of iron. Its crimson colour reflected the sharp draw of the light. Jaclyn noticed that first. All manner of reason told her not to look into the space. Something inside of her forced otherwise.

Jaclyn screamed.

“Jac?” Ellery asked wildly. “What is it? What do you see?”

She dropped the phone. She fell to her knees, crying. Desperate tears ran down her face and a horrifying sense of evil enveloped her. 

There on the floor of the kitchen bubbled a mess of blood and broken bones. It took a moment for Jaclyn to adjust to the scene. Everything seemed completely uplifted - but this was caused by the splatter of gore that had burst onto the cupboards and appliances. In fact, the only thing out of place was the granite island - it was entirely lifted from its seated position. Now, it rested comfortably on what remained of a body.

Megan’s body. Or, what was left of it. Crushed beneath its immense weight. From beneath its top lay the flabby flesh that hung from the exploded bones and saggy skin. Her head lay flattened by the sheer pressure of the concentrated rock. Her torso and legs were bent to unnatural angles. Jaclyn would fail to notice the svelte shadow that hung in the darkness of the hallway. It’s pinpoint limbs swayed gravely at its side. Breathing slowly. Watching. 

Instead Jaclyn would notice Megan’s phone. It lay vacant alongside her dead body. On its screen flashed a particularly grotesque death that mimicked her own. Stoned to death beneath a large chunk of rock, with a black textbook that read,

Thank you for Dropping! Tap here to share your Death now.

Cory Maddalena

BT, Grimsby

Tuesday October 29th, 2019