© Contributed by Soren IversonFive to 15 minutes. That's how long it takes Soren Iverson to turn one of his usually sarcastic shows about the tech world into an upcoming viral screenshot.
The Costa Mesa-based designer, who works on the Cash app daily, quickly gained a large following for his extracurricular project, a daily screenshot showcasing a satirical and realistic take on popular consumer technology. The add-ons are often quirky — Google Maps issues speeding tickets, Zillow neighborhood notices, free spam calls — but the underlying concepts are the extraordinary presence of technology in our daily lives.
Iverson, 28, started adding dummy features to existing apps in December after seeing several companies shut down a Spotify Wrapped campaign. He garnered several hundred likes with his parodies of this direction. Then he had the idea to integrate ChatGPT with iMessage; On January 3, his post had 2,600 likes. A follow-up article on the default "share someone else's screen" feature in Microsoft Teams has had 2,200 views.
His first full viral moment came on January 10, when he used interface design tool Figma to turn a crazy idea for an entire family of alarm clocks into a quick iPhone-style mockup. More than 30,000 people liked his follow-up tweet, and Iverson knew he had found plenty of tech meme opportunities.
"I'm starting to force myself to think more deeply about how I can change features and maybe add paywalls in weird ways," he told SFGATE earlier this week. His early sketches mostly depicted bizarre technical exercises or small annoyances at work, but when the family alarm went off, he realized that people react strongly to suggestive designs that don't seem too complicated in our reality. technologically intertwined.
The bottom line is that their technical bells and whistles are often based on existing software. "The interesting thing about parodies is that the more you do them, the more you realize that they can inadvertently highlight some of the weird or problematic aspects of the design," Iverson said.
Iverson's writing can be considered a source of humor, but it's often very real. Last week, Redfin released a sample real estate brokerage app that includes "understanding optimization"; "Three new apartment buildings, Chipotle, Sweet Green and Warby Parker, are under construction." According to Iverson, Redfin already has metrics that measure the degree of optimization; They are simply categorized differently.
Iverson's posts often elicit angry or elated comments from people who don't realize they are fake. Now he has trouble cracking a joke. "To be 100% clear, this is satire," he wrote on Twitter.
But part of the brilliance of his satire is in making it believable.
In a world where Twitter charges $8 for SMS verification, it's entirely possible that Instagram could pay users to remove embarrassing likes. Contact tracing programs have become widespread during the pandemic. Iverson triggered the "Scent Alert" feature in Apple Health. E-commerce reselling has permeated almost every industry. In Iverson's post, the fake OpenTable allows users to buy and sell orders at the Nobu sushi restaurant.
Other hits include parental controls for Juul; Tinder feature that shows a person dating a potential partner. and the customer's phone, "Can Dasher have fries?" According to Iverson, it took about a minute to create a direct Dordash survey with one question.
After two months of daily grinding, Iverson succeeded. He said he destroyed half of his March plans during a two-and-a-half-hour marathon earlier this week. Now he's experimenting with his Mike's Hard range of layouts and trying to capitalize on current events; One design featured a Chinese spy bubble in a Snapchat card feature and paid filter layout after the rise of TikTok. Under investigation for its hyper-realistic "glamorous" display. He regularly receives hundreds of thousands of views on Twitter and has increased the number of paid subscribers to his newsletter. Some ardent fans even signed up for his $240 offer, which includes one bonus idea per week (he even launched one of his subscription-only ideas).
Iverson has a long history of using art as a side job. In high school, he designed band graphics in exchange for tickets to shows and Taco Bell. While extracurricular activities helped Iverson "suspend disbelief" and reflect on his Cash App work plans, he said he purposely separated work and play. He's still a part of the world he likes, and despite what viewers might think, he clearly means his storyline is very different from full real estate.
"The truth is, it's much easier to create a few pixels and get them online than sending something into production that will be used by millions of people," he said, matching the voice discreet from the maven to the production of memes. designate. "It takes more responsibility and diligence."
Have you heard what happens in a technology company? You can securely contact Stephen Council, Technology Reporter on Signal at stephen.council@sfgate.com or by phone at 628-204-5452.
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