If you suffer from a lacklustre text life, help is at hand. Nattr, a new app that has been getting a lot of chatter, lets you crowdsource clever responses to text messages – usually texts from people you want to have sexts with. Back in the olden days, people used to send screenshots of conversations to their friends and, in a panic, ask: “What should I say?” Thanks to technological innovation, today’s young can ask random people on the internet for semantic support via what is basically Cyrano de Bergerapp.
When I say “today’s young”, I mean YOUNG. I’m 32 – ie double the age of most Nattr users. Asking teenagers for advice on my lexical love life made me feel like a creepy weirdo. I also worried that all my replies would read: “Go home, mum,” so I experimented with changing my age to 25.
As well as other Nattr users, you can ask your phonebook for responses; your contacts are informed of your dilemma via an anonymous text. So, my dentist may have received a message that said: “Natalie says she’s not sure if we have textual chemistry, how should I respond?” If he did, he didn’t write back.
The app’s special sauce, however, is its ability to deliver responses crafted by Nattr’s “team of handpicked writers and comedians”, identifiable by a star on their avatar. If you aren’t a handpicked member, you can earn a star by accumulating likes.
One Nattrati member, standup comedian Leah Knauer, will handcraft replies. A recent question she tackled was: “How can I ask an American girl out in a way that she will find witty?” Her reply: “If she’s blond: ‘You look like you’re made of angel-hair pasta and some sort of powdered gold. I know that sounds weird, but I mean it in a good way.’”
Nattr is free to use, but you have to buy “charms” to view responses from starred users such as Leah. For $3.99 (about £2.80), you get 500 charms; unlocking or requesting a response from a writer/comedian costs 300 charms. This is a clever business move. A locked reply teases you with potential: perhaps this pun will be the one; perhaps this reply will convince Natalie that, actually, I’m extremely funny, but most of my jokes go over her head.
So, what’s the verdict? Will Nattr up your text game? A few people have told me they found it useful. However, if you’re over 30, Nattr may simply leave you feeling oldr and not much wisr.
