December 10, 2021 | LIFE | By Rhetta Power
Have you heard of Poop Map? Depending on your answer to that question, you might be missing out on the opportunity to bond with your loved ones on a more intimate level.
Let me introduce you to Poop Map. It’s a burgeoning social media application revolutionizing the idea of communication and intimacy. In general, the app seems to be well-received by the public.
Poop Map boasts an impressive 4.8 star rating on the app store. The basic premise of the app is that users are given a platform through which to talk about a not-often-discussed human behavior: pooping.
The app gives you the option not only to give your friends the exciting update that you have made a bowel movement, but also to provide some basic information on the quality of your excrement. You can rate your poops using a five-star system, as well as include a small blurb about your bathroom adventure. Poop Map adds a geotag to posts, meaning that as you add fellow poopers, you start to build a poop map.
Poop Map has a feed, so instead of scrolling through Instagram or TikTok when you’re on the can, you can peruse your friends’ recent poop activity. You can even join pooping leagues and compete with your friends to see who drops the most deuces.
Poop Map gives you statistics on your pooping activity, including overall poops and poops per day/week/month. Finally, Poop Map will award you “achievements,” just in case you’re in need of some extra validation in your life.
Some examples of achievements include Spoopy Pooper (you pooped on Halloween), Toilet Appreciator (you pooped on World Toilet Day), and Centi Pooper (you pooped 100 times).
Poop Map is a simple app with a basic design, but the conversation that it prompts is new. By bringing poop talk into the public sphere, norms are challenged, especially for women.
Although the saying “girls don’t poop” is largely a joke, sentiments like these have weight on our societal conceptions of the utility and function of women’s bodies. Poop Map normalizes a normal function of our bodies. Moreover, Poop Map has the power to increase your familiarity with your own body. How aware are you right now of your last bowel movement?
Bowel action is a strong indicator of your internal health, specifically of your digestive system. Gaining a greater sense of what’s going on down under could actually tell you things about what’s happening inside. Poop Map redefines the very idea of intimacy with yourself and your friends, because really, is there anything more personal than a person’s poops?
Poop Map sits at a comfortable #119 in the entertainment category of the app store, but it’s making a splash on the CC campus.
Casey Ferrigno ’23 is an avid Poop Map fan. “I giggle and smile when I get notifications from my fellow poop mappers,” she said. Examples of notifications that she has received are “tootzfordays dropped a fat one” and “powerpooperpal dropped it like it’s hot.”
Ferrigno described Poop Map by saying that “the app allows you to rate each poop and comment on each other’s shitty behavior.” Ferrigno also added that she would like her peers to add her on Poop Map: @IhaveexplosiveIBS. Although Ferrigno exemplifies a CC student who has found connection, happiness, and humor through the Poop Map interface, she is not representative of the entire student body in this regard.
For example, Kate Weissman ’23 remains unconvinced by Poop Map. When asked why she doesn’t use Poop Map, she simply stated “I just don’t feel the need to record my poops for myself or others.” Weissman’s opinion is likely shared by many on CC’s campus; the simple fact is that not everyone wants to talk about poop, and that’s perfectly fine. The contrast between these viewpoints actually represents the beauty of Poop Map: it’s an opt-in connection to make with others.
If reading this article has piqued your interest in Poop Map, I encourage you to give the app a try. You might find that for you, potty-talk belongs in the bathroom. However, there’s a chance that instead, you’ll develop a heightened connection with your body, your friends’ lives, and have some laughs along the way.