On Monday, word spread of a fight app called Rumblr, appropriately referred to as the Tinder of street fighting. In short, the app would allow you to hook up with people who wanted to brawl, presumably Fight Club style. It sounded completely ridiculous and in part, illegal, but that didn’t stop a number of websites from running with it.
Hell, the “soon-to-be” app had fancy pictures filled with selfies and bros fighting. Because of course it did.
The New York Daily News even spoke with the creators who told them they were super serious about the whole thing. Planned to release the app on November 9 at 5 p.m.
“Rumblr is an app for recreational fighters to find, meet and fight other brawl enthusiasts nearby,” according the app’s website. It encourages users to insult their matched opponents with this pro-tip: “tell your match what you don’t like about their picture.”
And you’ll never believe this guys but it was fake. Very, very fake (and stupid). It was the work of some college dropouts with nothing better to do with their time. Some kind of guerrilla marketing stunt.
Rumblr started as a portfolio project to help us launch our creative consulting agency, von Hughes. We’re a team of college dropouts with backgrounds in marketing, design, and engineering. Rumblr came about organically as a funny idea amongst a group of friends, but quickly budded into an opportunity to showcase our branding skills. Within a day or two, VentureBeat picked it up as a news story and, within another day or two, it spread to over two hundred news outlets globally. We saw it as an opportunity to show the world our ability to produce a brand and market a product, and that’s what we did. This is our attempt to turn this entire story into something positive. We’ve collectively slept for twenty hours the last three days producing the web application, managing social media marketing efforts, and pursuing news coverage. Rumblr became a relevant topic in multiple countries, cultures, and languages.
We understand that some of you were genuinely looking forward to using an app like Rumblr, and we’re sorry to disappoint. However, if you still are truly wishing to release some built-up angst, consider fighting more pressing issues such as gang violence, domestic abuse, and at-risk youth culture.
The lesson here of course is to not believe everything (or anything) you read on the internet. Also, if someone tells you that you can arrange fights on an app, they’re lying. Also, they should be in jail. That too.
