Mother NYC Bring Judgement with Proust

Mother New York, in collaboration with David Carson -founder of Heavy.com and FuseTV - have just launched a new app which they have designed and produced under their Mother Ventures arm.

Called Proust the app is essentially about preferences. It allows you to judge and rank "everything from the absurd to the everyday", then see how those judgements compare to friends' judgements and then discuss and debate the results. It is, as Mother describes it "as if the notorious party game F/M/K [fuck/marry/kill] had an illicit threesome with The Newlywed Game and the Proust Questionnaire".

Below Mother's Andrew Deitchman and David Carson talk about the idea behind the app and their plans for it.

Tell us a bit about Proust; where did the idea for the app come from and why do you think it’s a good idea?

Deitchman & Carson: Proust was an inherited orphan project we thought had incredible potential. It had many incarnations as a Q&A game but we kept gravitating back to one single idea: that it's fun to judge.

It’s a mobile gaming app that takes a natural behavior of ranking and stacking and turns it on its head into an oddly revealing game; you find our what your fiends really think on everything from the ridiculous to benign.

How did you end up partnering with David Carson?

Deitchman: I've been a huge admirer for a long time starting with Heavy back in the day. I was introduced by Chris Roan (a brilliant Mother strategist and 'connector') and a love affair blossomed from there.

Is the app associated with any client or simply an idea and app owned by the parties involved?

Deitchman: There are no clients involved. This is a venture in the purest sense.

Is product creation and ownership going to become more and more relevant to creative agencies?

Carson: I suppose that depends on the agency.  For Mother, it's become a core activity and something we're very proud of.

Are you working on any more innovations at the moment?

Deitchman & Carson: We have big dreams, if the Unicorn didn’t give that away. We see a place for this in game show culture and we love the idea of experimenting with editorialising the cards or maybe connecting users who are ranking lists exactly alike. There are loads of feature sets that we haven’t built into this current version, but have plans to include them soon.

What is it about human nature that means people love making lists?

Carson: Making lists is what separates us from the zombies and their impending apocryphal rise (I keep seeing it on TV, so it must be coming). I mean, does a zombie really care whether they're dining on entrails, eyeballs, or filet of buttocks?

I'd like to think that humans would. And I'd go so far as to say they'd even care how it was prepared and served. And possibly which beverage pairs nicely with it. I'd say making lists and having preferences says A LOT about human nature.

And talking of making lists, apart from Proust, what are your favourite apps?

Carson: Having a blast with Jacob Lodwick's new app, Keezy. It's beautiful, fun and super simple. And I have a serious addiction to the DOTS game.