Quirky App Of The Day: Choke The Chicken
by Kathryn Zane
May 28, 2012
I review many different apps that I describe as being good for passive agressive people. Some of them are voodoo apps. Some are based on writing notes about what offended you and sending them out into the universe. The apps that I review are pretty much harmless. I believe that the most violent are the ones with the voodoo dolls. Choke The Chicken is not an app that I recommend.
Choke The Chicken is a game of seeing how hard you can shake your iDevice. The harder you shake, the more the meter at the bottom fills up. Once you stop shaking, the meter retreats. While it doesn't seem that there's an actual way to finish the job in choking the chicken, I'm still not a fan of the idea behind the app.
The graphics are part of the problem. The app features a hand that grabs the chicken's neck, and shakes the neck back and forth. The chicken's eyes roll around and its tongue hangs out. While it is easy to dismiss that it's because the chicken is dizzy, it is still too chillingly related to the reactions of being choked.
The app advertises that it's a good way to relieve stress. I think it's different when the point of the app is to take your frustration out on animals. It's not even like a video game where something is out to get you, and you're fighting back. If you want to relieve your stress, there are plenty of other apps out there that aren't so agressive. They especially don't use living objects as the target.
Now, I'm not saying that the developers condone going out and throttling live chickens just for kicks and giggles. However, there's something that feels off in taking out agression on any live creature, whether it's a simulation or not.
Does it bother you to have virtual people or animals be the targets of violence? They can't feel anything. Does it feel off to be participating in fake violence, or is it easy to realize that nothing is actually being harmed?
Choke The Chicken is available in the App Store for free.
