Confessions of a FourSquare Addict

There are two things I love in life: my FourSquare app, and midgets that wrestle. Hear me out.

When I first heard about the FourSquare App, I knew I wanted it. To be honest, I had no idea what it was but I knew I couldn’t live a fulfilling life without it. It reminded me of a simpler time in life when we would play Cops & Robbers on the playground. Or Boys-versus-Girls (which now seems incredibly misogynistic). Or we would take a piece of extra-thick sidewalk chalk, and construct an oddly oblong excuse of a square, partitioning it into four oddly oblong smaller squares, and voilà, our foursquare court. A place of magick.

Of course, this was in the early 90′s and FourSquare had a different, more innocent connotation. It was a time when dodgeball (and other games involving projectile, inflatable rubber balls) were still legal in the state of New Jersey. There were no iPods, iPads or iPhones. If you had a cell phone, it was that gray Nokia brick with the piercing green LCD. It came pre-programmed with two ringtones: Beethoven’s Fur Elise and Beethoven’s Ode To Joy. The only app was That Snake Game, where the snake moves around a square and continues to grow while consuming little black dots. It was like Pac Man except newer, fresher, and more badass because you could play it on the go. Cell phones were ushering in a new time: a bridge between the horrible mistakes of the 80′s (read: hair, florescent spandex, beepers) and the electronic bubble of The Aughts. My teachers wore long, flowing, floral-print dresses with matching floral adornments in their hair. I, on the other hand, rocked the flannel plaid shirt. In fact, I was so fashion-forward, I wore plaid every Picture Day until the seventh grade.

Now, times are different. Floral print is reserved for your grandmother’s old couch, with or without the plastic cover. People are saying that Foursquare is the new Twitter. I would like to think that FourSquare is the new plaid, with its intricately patterned lines symbolic of some kind of socio-electronic connection. No, FourSquare is the new black. Twitter is the new Facebook. Black is the new White. FourSquare is the new God. Social Media is the new Mortal Coil, flipping our entire existence on its own head. Hello, new is the new old.

There is no denying that FourSquare is LYFE. It’s like Pringles: once you pop, the fun don’t stop.

I mean, seriously. The only thing better than unlocking a FourSquare badge, I would imagine, is the act of giving birth. But since I’m a man, I’m only speaking in the subjunctive. Now, I don’t want you to be intimidated by my sheer FourSquare awesomeness. I’m kind of a big deal in the FourSquare world. I am currently the holder of the following badges: Far Far Away, Trifecta, and the coveted I’m On A Boat. (Sans flippy-floppies.)

You see, FourSquare takes its name from the childhood game where the race to the top was getting to that coveted serving square. For a mere $2.99—the price of a Starbucks tall Tazo—the app is available on the advanced phones of the bourgeoisie: iPhones, Crackberries, Androids, anything expensive enough to offset the price of your average Brooklyn sublet.

Once you have the app, it is your divine duty to “check-in” everywhere you go. It’s like having your mother on your back asking you where you are, are you okay, did you eat, at all times of the day. Who wouldn’t want that? This information is then fed directly to your Facebook and Twitter via the Legion of Invisible Fairy Goddesses Of The Social Network. Magical.

It’s not as banal as it sounds. Really. Trust me. You get points. You get points and points and points for the most mindless things ever. Remember how it used to be cool to sneak out of the house and have nobody know your whereabouts? Well, that was so 1993 and this is so not 90210. We’re in a new era. An era where you’re only a badass if your Twitter followers know exactly where you are at every point of the day.

So, for anyone who is curious, to all of my followers (!), I say: I love you. I love you all. And because I love all of you with all of my heart, I want to inform you that today at 4:17 p.m., I checked into my local Stop N Shop. That’s right. I had to get craisins. I’ve been craving them like you have no idea. So I checked-in via FourSquare, and now I’ve garnered enough points to become the mayor of Stop N Shop. Hold the applause. Save your adoration. My life now has meaning, and now, indirectly, so does yours. (You’re welcome.)

As if that isn’t good enough, there is a feature called The FourSquare Diary. Listen up, especially you alcoholics out there. You will eat this up for breakfast. Get this, every day it e-mails you a list of your previous day’s check-ins. Just in case you forgot! It’s perfect for anyone who wants to make bad decisions on a Friday night and then relive them the next morning while nursing a hangover. Similarly, the Where Do You Go feature generates a heat map of your FourSquare activity. Again, lest you forget where you actually went, this will remind you.

My only complaint is that I cannot tell people exactly what I’m doing once I’m there. For example, on February 14th, I checked-into my urologist’s office, went to Duane Reade to buy Jujifruits, and went home to watch the Lifetime Original Movie, “Arianna Huffington Ate My Baby,” starring Natalie Portman in her role of the decade. With FourSquare, I can only check-in to the locations. I can’t share my wealth of ideas with the world. What if someone else wanted to share the joy of watching a cannibalistic Arianna Huffington foam from the mouth? How can I share this with my followers?

Despite that jeremiad, I will admit, you can leave tips for future FourSquare visitors. The best tip I’ve seen so far said: @Papaya Dog: A Papaya Dog with the works is the best $1.50 you’ll spend. I bought one, deepthroated it in front of 17 people and said, This is why my boyfriend loves me. Five stars.

I love when people make memories and FourSquare it. To you, anonymous Papaya Dog Deepthroater, I say, Thank you for that little nugget of wisdom. Now every time I go to Papaya Dog, I look around and think, Is that the talented, deepthroating, FourSquare tipster I can only love from afar? It’s certainly possible.

Sometimes I like to imagine what famous people, like Cyndi Lauper, would post on FourSquare. Cyndi Lauper just checked-into every gay pride festival on the East Coast of America & Canada. (Of course she would be too scared to go to Orgullo Mexicano. You know, with all the drug violence. They would hold her for ransom and no one would pay to set her free. Señor, we just got word that the gay mafia is offering us two kilos of MAC eye glitter for her release. It would be tragic.)

After a bunch of people FourSquared their visits to Tienanmen Square on the anniversary of the massacre-that-shall-not-be-named, China officially banned the application. This didn’t stop China’s neighbor, Kim Jung Il from FourSquaring his activity at Hotel Pyongyang, later declaring on Twitter, We got that Henny, now where them hoes at?

FourSquare is almost singlehandedly changing the way we perceive time and space. Can you imagine—an app that almost creates an implicit, electronically collective subconscious? The places exist here for what they are physically, and yet they exist on a whole new internet dimension. A dimension with quasi-mayors and quasi-points only accessible vis-à-vis your iPhone (or cellular equivalent). It really pushes the phrase in the know to a whole new level.

I’m currently the mayor of my local Chipotle, Dunkin Donuts and Stop N Shop. Now I’m hoping to branch out. My mother always told me to reach for the stars, so now I have my eyes on the Sketchers store. I’ve been meaning to buy those Shape Ups. They are like a gay man’s dream: oddly reminiscent of Baby Spice sneakers while working your legs and ass while you walk. God, those shoes were made for walking! I’m off to check-in and hopefully, someday, become the mayor of that domain.

Checking Out,

FourSquare Addict