App that means ‘sorry’ is no longer the hardest word
Saying ‘sorry’ the easy way The new app that allows you to virtually apologise
‘Weinstein’s bizarre apology – in which he somehow managed to quote Jay-z and raise the NRA – would obviously have been thrown in his face’
How many of the “I’m sorries” said over the past 24 hours have been heartfelt? None of those kicking off my belated email replies (unless it’s urgent, three or four days is an acceptable delay). And although I assured my husband I was sorry not to be accompanying him to that do last night, this wasn’t even slightly true: when he says the words “gala” and “auction” all I hear is “double life sentence, no parole”.
This morning’s apology to that blonde in the café? The one who kept picking up my five-year-old’s latest stash of small collectable Shopkins toys? The first time not so genuine (kids, right?), the subsequent three absolutely (other people’s kids, right?). Basically, like every other Brit, my apologies tend to be either a form of punctuation or a behavioural tick not dissimilar to clearing one’s throat.
Eight times a day. That’s how much we apologise as a nation. And it’s about to get still more frequent and disingenuous, because as of tomorrow we won’t even need to confront the wronged party – or open our mouths. Thanks to the new app, Sorry – a Paypal for apologies – we can scattergun our virtual amends without meaning a word.
But, oh, won’t it feel good! Not for the apologee, who will be sent the equivalent of a Happy Face emoji in the place of a Thank You card, but for the Sinner In Chief, who gets to magnanimously lay it all out there in just another form of virtue signalling, without either having to look the person they’ve wronged in the eye or deal with any of the delicate wording issues that make apologising so laborious.
I’m assuming that like predictive text the app will have all the most banal and heinous offences laid out there – simply scroll down: “Sorry I... drank your birth date Cognac Prunier with my uni mates/slept with your best friend/forgot Mother’s Day/used your toothbrush to clean the bathroom grouting,” and that like the parent-prompted apologies of a child, they will essentially be delivered in a low monotone reeking of insincerity. We know that the app will also, however, allow you to “accept or reject” the apologies received from friends and family, just as we will be able to “accept and reject” those made by public figures, which will be put to a vote.
That part of the Sorry app I do like: just think how satisfying it would be to stamp a big red “DENIED” on all those Pay As You Go celebrity mea culpas. But only if, once rejected, public figures are forced to make amends… for their botched amends. Weinstein’s bizarre apology – in which he somehow managed to quote Jay-z and raise the NRA – would obviously have been thrown back in his face, but then what? Shouldn’t he be made to go to contrition classes or at the very least burn all of his bathrobes? Both Boris Johnson and Priti Patel’s recent nonpologies would surely be rejected – his for calling itself a “clarification” and hers for putting a sneaky act down to something as laudable as “enthusiasm” – but whereas some have called for his resignation, others have mourned hers. And speaking of resignations, how many of us would have accepted Sir Michael Fallon’s, allowed him to put that regrettable business of his hand on a woman’s knee 15 years ago behind him and encouraged him to get on with protecting the nation? “Sorry” would let you, the viewer, decide – at least in your own head.
What the app wouldn’t do – and what all the puffed up outrage, insincere apologies and fake morality out there fails to do – is make society any kinder or more compassionate. Sorry.