Klouchebag, Finally Something More Douchey Than Klout

Today my Twitter friends are going nuts about Klouchebag, the service that takes social media parody (and Klout puns) to the next level, with algorithms and stuff.

As with Klout, you enter your Twitter handle and are given a score between 1 and 100. But instead of measuring social media influence, Klouchebag tells you “how much of an asshat you are on Twitter.” Apparently, you’re judged on four factors: anger, “retweet abuse”, reposting from social apps, and misuse of the English language.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “That’s some random-ass criteria,” but Klouchebag creator Tom Scott is way ahead of you. In the FAQs, he justifies the scoring thusly: “This is about as scientific as Klout’s own measurements — which is to say, it’s pretty much a crapshoot.” He also can’t resist getting a little preachy:

But… but my Klout score is important!
No it’s not. It’s like search engine optimisation, only for yourself. Ignore it. Concentrate on making amazing things, caring about the people around you, and not being a douchebag. If you do that, then you’ll soon realise that it doesn’t matter one jot what an algorithm thinks of you.

The great, terrible joke here is that Klouchebag preys on your narcissism, just like Klout. Even if you think the score is complete bullshit, as soon as you visit the site, you have to see your number. (I mean … you do, right? It wasn’t just me?) Then of you have to see how your friends stack up. And what heck, why not tweet it, so that the awful cycle can begin again …

For my part, I was relieved to discover that with a score of 36, I’m only “a bit of a prat,” while my bosses Eric Eldon and Peter Ha clock in at 52 and 54, respectively. (Peter’s response: “I’m conflicted — I like Klouchebag, but I’m also the biggest one at TC.”)

Tom Scott, meanwhile, had the decency to give himself a score of 100, making him “Prat of the Year”.