I’m not sure what I was doing between Aug 28th 2014 and Halloween 2015, but I sure hope it was worth it because during those 14 months, I managed to miss out on possibly the greatest idea that ever materialized. 

Somebody was an app created by the actor/performer/writer Miranda July.  In short, it’s a messaging app whose messages are delivered in person by strangers.  Here’s how it works.  Your boyfriend lives 500 miles away, and you want to tell him that you miss him. You love him.  You open your phone but rather than text or email, you click on Somebody, and compose your message.  You include stage directions — walk slowly but confidently — and add nuanced action — hold his hand lightly.  You hit “send” and your message floats through the ether until somebody in close proximity to your boyfriend (thank you, GPS) pulls it down and chooses to deliver it.  July made a promotional ten-minute movie about Somebody.  I recommend watching it; it does a much better job explaining its fun and functionality than I.

I’m sure you’re wondering:  how in the world could this possibly work?  And you’re right:  only 25% of all messages ever got delivered, despite the fact that up to 10,000 people were using the app each day.  But that was part of its charm.  Liz Stinsin points out in Wired that Somebody was “a pretty accurate representation of most human interactions.”  She goes on, “Meeting somebody on Somebody takes a little serendipity, a little bit of being in the right place at the right time. For what it’s worth, July doesn’t see Somebody as a mode of communication akin to texting or email, anyway. It’s a massive public art project, an experiment to see how willing people are to don another human’s personality and connect with a stranger.”

*

On May 24th 1844, Samuel Morse sent America’s first telegram. His simple message “What hath God wrought?” traveled the 40 miles between Washington and Baltimore, and over the next century, the telegram’s simplicity and immediacy secured its prevalence.  Ships and railroads could operate effectively and businesses and banks could transact seamlessly, now that they could communicate in real time. 

This invention had a profound effect on the way people communicated.  

Unfortunately, though, God wrought death, disease, and disaster — the kind of urgent news well-suited for the telegram.  It wasn’t long before the telegram was associated with tragic events.  No one wanted one.  Ever.  Especially, not during war time.

But like any simple, effective innovation, the telegram would be iterated. In 1933 to shed the negative stigma that had been affixed to their telegrams, Western Union executive George Oslin convinced his company that “messages should be fun” and sent the first singing telegram to teen idol pop star Rudy Vallee in July 28th 1933 on his 32nd birthday.  Western Union thought Oslin was crazy for thinking that singing telegrams would be profitable, claiming that he’d make them a “laughingstock.”  This was the Depression, after all.  What’s there to sing about?   Apparently a lot, because by the time Oslin retired in 1964, the company was making millions off of his “fun.”  

*

After some googling, I read about a user experience of Somebody.  Caolin Madden moves us from her initial skepticism of the app to the compelling giddiness that gets her to deliver a message to a young woman named Dax.  Despite the fact that GPS claims she is right there, Dax is very hard to find.  Eventually, her disappointment transforms to persistence and Madden ultimately delivers that message to Gage.  She concludes, “As an art project, Somebody is interested in the discomfort that produces these failures … The app is intended, at least in part, to make us aware of the awkwardness and fear that accompanies embodied experience; it encourages us to look up from our phones and reenter the real world.”  Wisely, she points out, “But for some of us the real world is more dangerous than it is for others.”  

What she means is, we all experience the world differently.  Sending a message to a young white woman? to a young man of color? to an elderly white man?  In each and every case, the messenger matters.  At the end of her blog post, Madden points out that while delivering the Somebody message, she never felt unsafe:  “and that had everything to do with the fact that I’m a thirty-something white Brooklyn mom, a particular Somebody whose safety is rarely threatened, not in daylight; a Somebody whose Midwestern-mom body and adorable toddler made me seem non-threatening, despite all my yelling, and might have shielded me from suspicion or harassment.”

The more I think about Somebody, the more I understand its transiency.  Something like Somebody can only exist briefly.  In theory, it’s absolutely gorgeous:  embrace that possibility of connection.  In practice, especially in 2020, it’s absolutely terrifying: escape that threat of connection.  We’ll never have a Somebody right now.  We’re too woke.  We’re too broke.  We’re too sad.  We’re too mad.  

Somehow, the Depression’s invisible walls were thin enough for tunes sung by strangers to slip right on through.  Today, we need Somebody more than ever, but our walls are too high.  Too thick.  Too visible.  Too wide.

With the emergence of the telephone and affordable long-distance calling rates, Western Union stopped singing telegrams by 1974 and stopped telegram services altogether in 2006.  Today, a few clever, independent companies remain active in this niche market of kitschy, campy entertainment.  Think: Clue. Think: Grover. Think: Will Farrell.

But how wonderful would it be to get a knock on your door today.  Right there, a stranger.  He’s smiling.  Holding a piece of information you do not yet have, both of you waiting.  Messages, floating like periwinkle balloons passing through soft grey skies.  Someone, reach for them.  Anybody, pull one down.  Somebody.  Please.  Try.