"It's really an answer to everything out there in social media. All you can do is 'like' things," Banks told Mashable. "I don't want to be the guy pretending to be someone I'm not. I want to be real and say, 'I'm sitting in traffic and I hate this.'" While you can post a comment like that on Facebook or Twitter, Banks' contention is that providing a dedicated community for dislikes frees up users to re-think the type of posts they share and vent a bit.
Banks spent more than a decade directing commercials and running a New York production company, which also developed apps for clients in recent years. As a result, he got interested in developing apps on the side and started brainstorming a social app that might stand out from the many others on the market. "I was looking at the social world and thinking, What's missing?'" Banks decided the answer to that question was Hater. So six months ago, he sold off his company and devoted himself to working on Hater full time.
The resulting app, which launched on the iPhone Friday just in time for SXSW, and will be available on Android in the next couple months, looks a lot like Instagram. You can take a picture or upload a photo from your phone, share it to the Hater community with a caption, view a feed of other posts from the Hater community and offer feedback. Of course, the intention for Hater is very different than Instagram. With Hater, you might take a picture of yourself waiting in line or stuck in a traffic jam to show how much you dislike it.
This isn't the first app to take a negative spin on sharing online. Enemygraph, a Facebook app that launched last year, let users declare enemies rather than friends on the social network. But Banks says Hater doesn't just want people to be negative for the sake of being negative. He plans to roll out a feature in the future called Hate For Good, which will let users "create awareness" for things that need changing simply by sharing the fact that they dislike it.
"It doesnt have to be so negative," he says. "You might hate something so much you want to change it, which is the complete opposite of what happens when you Like something."
Banks also has hopes of eventually turning the Hater brand into a clothing line and perhaps even opening up some storefronts. For right now, though, Banks is focused on building up the app's community at SXSW. Banks will be at Startup Village in Austin for the event.