Cognitive Design

For $1.99 you can have an ad-free application that turns an iPhone into a fart machine – the iFart.  You can select from a  range of farting sounds (e.g. a wet one) and play them on-demand, on a delayed timer for a sneak attack, as a security alert or in other modes.

You can see and hear the iFart work on YouTube.

Sales have been brisk and news/blog coverage has been impressive. By why? 

A farting sound will: 

1. Make people laugh (almost every time) once they realize it was meant as a gag.  The laughter comes from the tension created and released by bringing a soft taboo into sharp focus.

2. Embarrass people but not beyond the bounds of what is acceptable (most of the time). Think of it as a high tech version of the old – very old - ”pull my finger” joke.

Laughter and embarrassment, especially followed by relief that it was a gag,  generates mental energy. In essence iFart is an inexpensive and easy way to generate a burst of emotional energy on demand.   And we know from a cognitive science perspective that we have a very strong tendency to do things that generate mental energy.

The iFart does have utility-  it is a portable mental energy pump.  

Now, using the iFart is not for everyone, so it definitely tells us something about the psychographic profile of those that download it.   Others might prefer a burp, laugh, or a sneeze with a word embedded in it like “aaaah bullsh…”  

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Examples, Technique. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.