Hypocrisy can be a funny thing.

Everyone does it, even myself, and I am near perfect.

All kidding aside, there is one mobile phone app that has been popular for a while now that has gotten on my watch list for hypocrisy at its finest. Yes, I have a list and like to refer to it and laugh at it often.

Anyway, that app is Live.me.

There are other apps that are related to this app, who do basically the same thing with some twist to them, but Live.me is the first that comes to mind and is the most known.

If you ever get curious and download it like I did, one rule the app makes a point to broadcast to everyone is that no sexual content is allowed. In what is assumed by the app’s developers, anyone who is doing such activities can and should be reported. Those users found to be doing those things will be kicked off the app, assumedly.

More to the point, the marketing department has not spoken to the app’s developers very well apparently because every advertisement you see for the app has young, attractive girls, often who have noticeable features, posing in a way that makes those features more noticeable.

I do not know what the app is trying to do by having this contradictory and downright hypocritical appearance, but it brings up a bigger point that women and girls are still objectified in society.

I know, Captain Obvious is running to find me and tell me what he knows best.

But in a time when women are fighting for more equality and people do not want others to objectify women, what type of message is this app promoting?

I would think an app that has grown a fan base and should have a reputation as being a friendly app would not want something like this happening.

The bottom line is that women’s push for equality and to not be objectified is being hindered in simple and not mainstream ways.

An app that is supposed to be a way for people to have a voice and just ‘chill out’ with people interacting with them is seemingly unintentionally hurting a bigger cause.

What are young boys supposed to think when they see young girls posing with their bodies being shown in, while mild, suggestive ways?

What is happening is that the kids we as a society want to teach about how to treat women properly, are seeing these advertisements and thinking that if a mainstream app is showing girls like this, then why should they see women any other way?

Like I said, similar apps do the same thing with their advertisements, and many more mainstream publications do the same thing. Unfortunately, Live.me, you were in my headlights, so I had to bring up what is wrong with your advertisements.

Dillan Schorfheide is a junior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].