Last week, an app called "Yo" achieved internet infamy for receiving $1 million in funding, despite its only functionality being that it allowed you to send the word "Yo" to your friends. Over and over again. Forever.
So, Indian start-up Wow Labz created the perfect response. Ladies and gents, please witness: aiYO.
Unsurprisingly, this brilliant app allows you to send your friends the word "Aiyo" (a South-Indian exclamation of despair) over and over again.
Unlike "Yo," this parody totally calls you out on having too much time on your hands. If you send too many at once, a woman's voice yells: "Arey kuch kam dhandha nahi hain kya?" (Don't you have any work or business?)
The app's description makes no secret of how its developers feel about the original "Yo":
AiYO is a character less, senseless way of bugging people in the middle of meetings, sleep, meals, theater or whenever they are doing anything important.
AiYO is one and only one thing, a tool to irritate your friends.
Wanna irritate someone, first thing in the morning? Just AiYO.
Wanna say "Baby I want a breakup"? - AiYO.
"You are in a board meeting?" - Let me AiYO you.
"Are you sleepy?" - AiYO.
The possibilities are endless.
Irritate the hell out of anyone, anywhere right from your mobile.
They'd want the same power to bug others like you, so them deleting the app is out of the question.
So what's keeping you? Get started now. AiYO.
aiYO is a verbal expression that depicts a bummer. It is also a Chinese (Mandarin & Cantonese) term for when you are hurt or just an expression when you're annoyed, frustrated, surprised, etc.
This app is created with the intention of creating humor, killing time and taking a dig at investors who invest on ideas with no barrier to entry.
Built by a bunch of jobless folks at a nondescript startup in Bangalore!
aiYO was built at Wow Labz's Bangalore headquarters in just a few hours, by a team of mostly interns.
"We cannot understand why investors are throwing money at something as absurd as Yo," Wow Labz's co-founder, 28-year-old Rohith Veerajappa, told Quartz. "Our startups in India struggle so much to raise money... We are also in pain that an app like this received this kind of attention and money."
While aiYO provides hours of mindless hilarity, its message is succinctly and unsubtly splashed on its website:
