Watch and Be Amazed as the Internet Becomes a Parody of Itself

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It’s about time we had a rigorous, quantitative way of telling our friends what we really think of them. Meet Peeple, coming soon to a smartphone near you:

When the app does launch, probably in late November, you will be able to assign reviews and one- to five-star ratings to everyone you know: your exes, your co-workers, the old guy who lives next door. You can’t opt out — once someone puts your name in the Peeple system, it’s there unless you violate the site’s terms of service. And you can’t delete bad, inaccurate or biased reviews — that would defeat the whole purpose.

Sounds like a libel suit waiting to happen, doesn’t it? Exciting! In any case, here’s the deal: When Peeple launches, I want every one of you to download the app and rate me with one star. Zero stars if possible. For a brief moment, I want to be the worst person in the world. This will be my 15 minutes of fame.

Unfortunately, I know my readers. You probably think this sounds like a hoot, but you’re too lazy to actually do it, aren’t you? I guess I don’t blame you. I am too.

Oh well. But one more thing before I end this post. According to Caitlin Dewey, “You can already rate restaurants, hotels, movies, college classes, government agencies and bowel movements online.” Bowel movements? Well fine. I would give today’s four stars. No, wait. Five stars. It was pretty excellent.

POSTSCRIPT: There’s already an app-enabled camera for your front door called Peeple, a poorly-reviewed Tyler Perry movie called Peeples, a kids’ toy called Creeple Peeple, and a “urine-induced art” package called Peeple (you put the peeple in urinals, and they slowly lose their clothes as you pee on them). These guys couldn’t think of a more unique name for their ridiculous app?

ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: I sure hope we’re allowed to change our ratings in this app. When some little rat bastard of a “friend” refuses to let me borrow his lawnmower, I want an easy way to punish him.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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