Is it possible for an app to rest in a moral grey area and also be an incredibly effective time-saver? If that interesting combination exists, it exists inside a new app called Badabing!
What Badabing promises is simple. “Have you ever browsed endlessly through a friend’s albums looking for beach or pool pics? Badabing! helps you find them in a minute. Then browse, bookmark or share,” they say. Yes, Badabing is an iOS app that takes all the time out of searching for your Facebook friends bikini pics. I’m actually surprised that something like this didn’t come along sooner.
All you have to do is select five friends and let their algorithm do the work. Whether is looks for albums tagged with “beach” or “pool,” or finds skin in images, or both – who knows? But Badabing will return many of the photos of your friends at their most scantily clad. After you unearth the photos, you can bookmark them and save them for later. Yeah, it’s a bit icky.
I downloaded the app ($1.99), for investigative purposes of course, but was unable to unearth the bikini photos that Badabing promises. Maybe my friends are just a little more discerning when it comes to Facebook and their privacy. Drew Olanoff over at TechCrunch says that it worked for him, and it was “really creepy.” Yeah, it’s pretty creepster. But if you’re already scouring your Facebook friends’ photo albums for suggestive images, this app will probably make it easier for you.
Anyone who posts bikini pics on Facebook should know that their friends can see them. That’s just common sense. And what this app does is simply unearth images that were already shared, freely. But there’s just something that feels so wrong about it in a way. I guess the only “lesson” you can take from this is be careful which friend requests you accept.