Forget all those warm, fuzzy "likes" on Facebook.
A new app called Hater panders to the pessimist in all of us.
The anti-"like" app was launched in March, a solution for those who have bemoaned Facebook's lack of a "dislike" button.
"Who really 'likes' your ex's new significant other, friends who are always on vacation and especially what they are eating!" says the Hater app website. "No thanks, now you can Hate on it."
The app, available for iPhones, looks and works a lot like Instagram. Snap a picture of something annoying, add a caption, post and wait for others to pile on by tapping the thumbs-down icon.
So what are people hating?
The usual: Mondays, Facebook, cancer, celebrities, sports teams and, of course, cats. The seemingly random, too: Lays Chicken & Waffles chips, matching socks, even moms.
But it hasn't exactly taken off. Even the most popular posts earlier this week had only three or four "hates" each.
That seems to align with recent research out of the Georgia Institute of Technology showing that people on Twitter seek the positive online, and avoid the negative.
Christopher Lower, a Twin Cities social media expert and co-owner of Sterling Cross Communications, doubts Hater will catch on.
"People block snark," he said. "Even on Facebook, they're hiding negative posts."
But Lower could think of one acceptable use: "I could hate the spring we're currently having." â–¡
