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The Internet Falls For Rumblr, a Fake "Tinder For Fighting" App
HughPickens.com writes: Caitlin Dewey writes at the Washington Post that Rumblr, a "Tinder for fighting," promises to bring fight club straight to your smartphone that lets users schedule consensual, recreational fights with local strangers for free. "Rumblr is an app for recreational fighters to find, meet and fight other brawl enthusiasts nearby," according the app's website. It encourages users to insult their matched opponents with this pro-tip: "tell your match what you don't like about their picture." Reported by the likes of Venture Beat, Business Insider, New York magazine, and the New York Daily News, there's only one problem: There's no way that the app is real. In fact, it looks far more likely that we are being trolled by a couple of precocious teenagers. Let's start with the app's most obvious problem: its questionable legality. If you're "throwing down" and seriously injure your opponent — or, God forbid, he dies — you cannot claim self-defense and you could be charged with crimes ranging from misdemeanor assault to homicide. If Rumblr's creators are found to have encouraged or aided an assault, they could be guilty of criminal facilitation in the fourth degree — a class A misdemeanor. They could certainly be sued in civil court by injured users or their families. "Our bet? Rumblr is a marketing stunt, a prank or (best case!) an unsubtle parody," concludes Dewy. "Part of me is scared it will turn out to be real, of course. Not for my sake, but for humanity's."
"Part of me is scared it will turn out to be real, of course. Not for my sake, but for humanity's."
Part of me is scared this person is serious.
Sometimes a good harmless troll is some good fun, shakes people up into actually thinking before they damn well read something.
Brings new meaning to the term "hey, hit me up on rumblr" I suppose too.
Obviously a fake — if one is already allowing a total stranger into one's comfort zone with all the accompanying risks, exposing himself to the stranger's skin and — quite possible during a fight — bodily fluids, why not have sex instead of kicking each other's teeth out?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Let's not report on it and give it free marketing. There's no danger to not spreading this: very few people are going to look for the app, and sensible people are going to distrust an app that encourages fighting or any other illegal activity. Let it drop, and take the wind out of sails.
Dewy, who wrote the above milquetoast nonsense, may find the fighting traditions of 18th- and 19th-century German students , as described, for example, in Mark Twain's "Tramp Abroad", most illuminating...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yeah, I'm confused about this one. Selling drugs or sex isn't legal either but that doesn't mean that a website that does it is fake.
Just because it is illegal to facilitate an exchange doesn't mean that someone isn't going to create a website that tries.
Sure, it might get taken down or they might open themself up to lawsuits but that doesn't change whether or not it can exists.
On another note, how exactly is a mutual fight illegal? There are plenty of places where boxing, cage fighting, etc... happens.
Because this would be a perfect minigame for it.
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The first rule of Rumblr is not to post about Rumblr...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Things like boxing (and hockey) wind up being "prize fights", are under heavy regulation, and are supposedly set up with enough safety procedures to avoid serious injury, with exceptions being considered errors, and dealt with accordingly.
My boss is a 4th degree black belt in some martial art. I mostly work remotely or at client sites so I don't see him that often, but when I do it's about 1-in-3 odds that he will have a black eye, bruise or some other "serious" injury from sparring at the martial arts place.
AFAIK, there's no regulation involved here. He doesn't hold a boxing license and there's no boxing commissioner present at his sparring sessions. People willingly show up and kick the crap out of each other, and apparently it's legal.
I'm not sure why a "tinder for fighting" would be illegal in that light. Any liability would seem to be a civil matter between the consenting parties, with the exception of possibly some kind of manslaughter liability if you killed the other guy.
Say, anyone know why they call them, "Anonymous Cowards"? I've never understood the reference.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The English law on assault has an exception for "manly sports". It's not assault if you consent, and by taking part you are assumed to consent to violence so long as it's within the rules & customs of the game.
You certainly don't need permission from a judge to have a sodding game of Rugby. mark-t is either delusional or he lives in a place full of utter pansies.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
samzenpus fell for the app, we did not.