Japanese App Tweets Embarrassing Things If You Oversleep

[MacRumors]

OKITE is a Japanese alarm clock app. It's designed to help users wake up, but with a twist: it sends embarrassing messages to the user's Twitter account every time they hit snooze.

Tofugu, a blog covering Japanese culture, points out that this type of public shaming is uniquely punishing in Japan:

The interesting cultural thing about this app is the whole public shaming thing. In America when you do something shameful it's all about the person doing the shameful thing. "What's wrong with you?" "Why would you do that?" etc. In Japan, it's kind of the opposite. When someone does something shameful, it's always "What will the neighbors think?" and "What will your classmates think?" Public shame is the most terrifying motivator of all in Japan, and this app plays right in to that.

The app sends out a wide variety of Tweets, some silly and some downright odd.

"From today on I'm going to head to work via unicycle."

"I want to buy a fast red Ferrari and a horse!"

"Just as I thought, I want to become a stewardess."

OKITE is available free on the App Store, but only in Japanese. It isn't localized into English. [iTunes]

Article Link: Japanese App Tweets Embarrassing Things If You Oversleep

 

[DeaconGTG]

"I want to buy a fast red Ferrari and a horse!"

Seeing that I am likely to tweet this anyway, I find this app utterly useless.

 

[bb426]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5313e Safari/7534.48.3)

I could see this work better if you could make your own embarrassing tweets. These arent even that funny or embarrassing.

 

[FrizzleFryBen]

This would just cause people to stop following you...if you were actually interesting enough to follow in the first place.

 

[davidwarren]

Omg how embarrassing

 

[rdowns]

There will be 87 English language ripoffs in the App Store by Tuesday.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Ok, that must be one of the cultural differences I didn't yet got usd to ... These comittment for self-embarrassment is also present in several daily TV shows ...

A much cuter example of apps working mostly in local culture context is "SmartTub". That simulate a Japanese bathtube with the cover you put on top because of water is shared with other family members. But only on iPad2 with smart over

 

[Mr. Chewbacca]

I know I read somewhere that an alarm app had a thing where it sent a small donation on your behalf every time you hit snooze.

Would be awesome if you could pick your charity but the app sent all the money to one I did not know anyting about.

 

[acslater017]

Great. We all know what Japanese people do when they're shamed...

(JUST KIDDING)

 

[trunten]

Just as I thought, I want to buy this app.

 

[Bonch]

Sad that so many people care that much about what other people think.

 

[DESNOS]

Sad that so many people care that much about what other people think.

That kind of statement would be unheard of in Japanese culture, because not caring about what other people think is pretty unheard of. The entire language is structured around being polite, as is Japanese culture in general. You can't really get by in Japanese society without caring about other people to some degree. I think it's a good thing.

 

[guzhogi]

Sad that so many people care that much about what other people think.

In a way, it's sad how people in the USA don't give a **** what others think.

I've heard that some Japanese CEOs who drive their companies into bankruptcy commit suicide due to the shame. Anyone know if that's true? I know this sounds horrible, but in some ways, that sounds a bit better than those American CEOs who get the golden parachutes worth millions of dollars. I'm sure there are some that worked their a**es off to prevent their companies from being even worse, but, IMO, they weren't good enough to deserve millions.

 

[LaazyEye]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5313e Safari/7534.48.3)

Sad that so many people care that much about what other people think.

In a way, it's sad how people in the USA don't give a **** what others think.

I've heard that some Japanese CEOs who drive their companies into bankruptcy commit suicide due to the shame. Anyone know if that's true? I know this sounds horrible, but in some ways, that sounds a bit better than those American CEOs who get the golden parachutes worth millions of dollars. I'm sure there are some that worked their a**es off to prevent their companies from being even worse, but, IMO, they weren't good enough to deserve millions.

I know at least they do it figuratively. I'm sure many people will not fully understand the point/impact this app is attempting to give. Especially since the force of some sayings are lost in translation. English has common saying that have cultural heritage attatched to them and because of that, they too make no sense when translated.

 

[DESNOS]

In a way, it's sad how people in the USA don't give a **** what others think.

I've heard that some Japanese CEOs who drive their companies into bankruptcy commit suicide due to the shame. Anyone know if that's true? I know this sounds horrible, but in some ways, that sounds a bit better than those American CEOs who get the golden parachutes worth millions of dollars. I'm sure there are some that worked their a**es off to prevent their companies from being even worse, but, IMO, they weren't good enough to deserve millions.

Not every Japanese CEO will (obviously), but suicide is considered a way to save face in such a shameful situation, so it happens.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]

The app sends out a wide variety of Tweets, some silly and some downright odd.

"From today on I'm going to head to work via unicycle."

I don't see that as embarrassing, silly, or odd...

Then again, I live in Portland.

 

[japhillips87]

I actually do ride a unicycle to work!

 

[accessoriesguy]

I wish i could be as creative as the japanese, I really wish to visit japan some time. Scratch that, I need to visit the world.

 

[Steve Mobs]

I love it.

 

[Mochi Hana]

The app sends out a wide variety of Tweets, some silly and some downright odd.
"From today on I'm going to head to work via unicycle."

I think going to work via unicycle would be kind of cool. o.o;

 

[shartypants]

Very clever, I like it!

 

[Ihatefall]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I actually do ride a unicycle to work!

Embarrassed for you

( T_T)＼(^-^ )

 

[YeahBuddy]

*Snooze* "I spent .99 cents on an app that posts strange phrases on my twitter account."

What will my neighbors think?

 

[fdv]

I know I read somewhere that an alarm app had a thing where it sent a small donation on your behalf every time you hit snooze.

Would be awesome if you could pick your charity but the app sent all the money to one I did not know anyting about.

This sounds like a much better idea.

 

[lostngone]

Even better...

Every time you push the snooze button it sends a message to the boss telling him/her that you are going to be X minutes late.