One of the hottest apps right now lets teens compliment each other.
Developers say the Gas app is meant to be a place where people feel better about themselves. It has been hanging out in the top five of The App Store and is super popular with high school students.
Anonymous question and answer apps like Ask.fm and Yolo have caused a lot of raised eyebrows in the past. People would often use them to bully others, saying what they didn’t like about someone or to make fun of them, according to The Atlantic. The developers of the Gas app for iOS say they are shooting for the opposite, hoping the app “shows you that there are people who love and admire you,” per Gas app.
To “gas someone up” is to build them up or give them fuel, so all the multiple choice questions on this app are positive. Once users download the app, it uses your location just once — whether you like it or not — to recommend high schools nearby. Disabling location access after signing up will not impact the app experience. The app then asks to give access to contacts, which users are not required to do, although Gas says it never shares contacts with other users. The app will send a verification code to the phone number provided so no one can sign in with someone else’s number.
But there’s nothing stopping someone from creating a fake account, as long as they have a legitimate phone number. Gas doesn’t require any proof that someone attends the high school they choose. But even if someone signed up at a school where they don’t belong, there doesn’t seem to be much harm in it.
The app will use four other users from the chosen high school and populate their names under multiple choice questions that refresh every hour. It will also fill in other users’ names from the phone’s contacts until the user “friends” at least four people at their school. Here are examples of some of the questions: “Who do you secretly admire?”, “Who is a breath of fresh air?” and “Who can fake it til they make it?” These are benign, often positive questions that pop up. Users can choose one of the four names provided, shuffle the names or skip to the next question.
Here is the only obvious way someone could use the app for any kind of bullying. When users choose a name, the app fills in each choice’s name with gray, depending on how many people have picked that person. There could be a scenario when one name has zero votes; someone could screenshot it and spread it around. That could definitely hurt someone’s feelings. Developers do say the app will show a name more often in polls if it hasn’t been picked recently.
When someone’s name is chosen, they receive a notification saying something like, “a girl gassed you up.” The user also receives a pink, blue or purple flame, depending on the gender of whoever picked their name. But it’s anonymous, so that’s all the information that will show up.
Users can buy different levels of something called God Mode by tapping “See Who Likes You.” Depending on how much someone pays, they can see the first initial of the person who voted for them, see the complete name of someone who voted for them or other revealing information. But there’s no way to know who has God Mode — it is completely anonymous.
Gas was formerly called Crush, as in “find your crush,” and God Mode does allow users to know who is choosing them in these polls. That could potentially be embarrassing for some users.
But the app does not allow any private messaging, even among friends, and there is no public commenting. There is nothing to stop an adult from joining and posing as a student, but they can’t cause much harm. And while there is the possibility that a stranger could try and friend someone, again there isn’t much danger in it.
No word on when or if the app will come to Android, but for now, it’s making a name for itself in the iOS world. The Washington Post reports that people have downloaded the Gas app more than five million times. The Post article also debunks the false claim that was circulating that bad actors were using the app for child sex-trafficking.
With zero direct-messaging, no public comments and optional location-tracking, the Gas app might just be one of the safest, most positive online social options out there.