Fucking Day: Pookie Tools

You know who I really trust? The Hawk Tuah girl, AKA Hailey Welch. She went on Bill Maher's podcast at some point shortly after her viral fame while she was still deciding how to make money off of being a meme, and he suggested she become a "relationship coach." Spit on that thang was such world-changing advice she hooked up with a shady AI app maker and, billing herself as a "Gen Z relationship guru," created an app called Pookie Tools.

Pookie is her nickname for her boyfriend. If I were to become a Gen Z relationship guru, my first piece of advice would be not to give your boyfriend a nickname that sounds like a crusty little white dog. Obviously, I'm no Hawk Tuah girl; my only relationship guru credential is twelve years of marriage (lame).

You might notice that unlike most apps, Pookie charges weekly. If you don't choose the annual premium, you will pay around $260 a year for this app, and the first thing they ask you is if you'd like to turn off those pesky reminders that let you know you're still paying for Pookie, even though you're sober now and making better decisions with your life.

Pookie is not a dating app! You're not being connected with other people who are also smitten by meme culture and dick jokes. It's an app designed to make you seem more fun and interesting on dating apps so that when you finally meet someone in person, they get to be disappointed in both your looks AND your personality. You can upload a screenshot of a conversation to Pookie, and it will generate a response for you.

Of course, I tested this with a few snapshots of a conversation between my husband and me. The main thing I learned from our conversations is that I ask him to bring me water so much. If you didn't know what our relationship was, you might think I'm a medieval peasant, and he's my jailer. Or perhaps you might think I'm a potted plant, and he's the twenty-year-old girl accidentally killing me from neglect. All I do is ask this man to bring me water and occasionally send him pictures of shoes I find stuck on poles in the Jewel-Osco parking lot. This didn't make Pookie's job easy, but it tried.

I instantly broke Pookie. I don't even blame Pookie for this. If you're dating someone and text them a picture of a random shoe you found on the ground to say, "Free shoe," there's no way to spice that up. Chris Evans could do this and get ghosted. Let me try again.

Ok, at least this is something I could plausibly respond with, although repeating the location he's stated he's headed to is much less impressive when a person does it than when a computer can do it. Also, he meant that he was picking up hotdogs for dinner, but then he saw a cute dog at the hotdog place. It's tough to take a single chunk of a screenshot and gather enough context to form a complete response, yet the app will not let you upload multiple screenshots so that the AI can understand the conversation better. So this tool sucks. I'm sure we can find one that's better. Let's see what else Pookie has to offer.

I tried the height detector immediately using several celebrities, and it got every single one correct. Then I thought maybe it has celebrities loaded in, so I tried it with a picture of my husband, and it nailed his 5'11 ass. There is also a bald predictor, which I think is made to predict whether or not someone is currently bald based only on a photograph of that person. I have a built in baldness predictor called my eyes, so I don't think I'll be needing that. I did try it out on Tom Cruise and there's only a 5% chance that he's currently bald.

Of course, you can't tell who this is, Pookie. I'm supposed to use this app to help me learn about random men on dating apps. If I know who the man is, I presumably could also tell if he's bald or not, unless he's got one hell of a hat. I'm shocked to say this, but I actually did expect more from an app franchised by someone mostly known for committing fraud and then disappearing from the public eye.

The final detector I tried out was a "wealth detector." This time, I didn't have to upload any pictures. It's text-based and simply asks questions like, "What kind of vacations do they take? Do they have any particular interest in art or collectibles? Do they have any unique or rare skills or talents?" If you respond that they vacation in Tunica, Mississippi, collect mouse skulls, and can belly dance, the app will tell you this man is POOR when they mean to say radical. You have met the perfect man; marry him.

Basically, if you answer that your "potential mate" (ew) collects Fabergé eggs and mostly attends events for this friend he has named MacArthur Genius Grant, the app will say that guy sounds pretty rich! Otherwise, maybe break up with him because the Hawk Tuah girl thinks he's a poor. If you do break up with them for poverty reasons and then learn they're, in fact, one of those rich people who just collect mouse skulls because they're cool, don't worry. The app will apologize for you with their apology writer tool. No human empathy necessary! Just enter your sin and the robot apologizes.

Thank you for the flawless apology for eating 76 chicken nuggets, Pookie. It's a mistake I would never apologize for. I kind of like the fact that Pookie doesn't judge. However, it also doesn't protect the user at all. There should definitely be some behavior that the AI flags. For instance, there's yet another section of the app where you can get outfit suggestions for dates.

I entered "touring his basement" in the "What are you doing and where" section. The app thought for a long time, then gave me Preppy, Edgy, Casual Chic, Bohemian, and Romantic basement touring outfit options. I think I would choose the Edgy outfit for this particular date because it sounds the easiest to run in, or possibly the Bohemian because a wide-brimmed hat can easily be turned into a weapon.

I know I've been out of the dating game for quite a while but there's one section of the Pookie app that really baffled me. I get why you would want to know the Zodiac compatibility of a date or if they are currently bald, but what do soccer skills have to do with dating?

When this section of the app asked me what soccer skills I would like to work on, I asked what soccer has to do with dating. It gave me this long spiel about skills like communication, adaptability, resilience, and confidence being necessary in both dating and soccer. That makes sense, I guess? Does The Hawk Tuah girl love soccer? If only I could ask her. Oh, wait, I can. Not in person because she's gone into hiding due to crimes, BUT I can ask the next best thing. The AI chatbot that simply lets you chat with a fake Hawk Tuah girl.

I guess she hates soccer? It decidedly does not involve beer and BBQ. It's just the kicking a ball thing, Hailey. This seems on brand for Hawk Tuah girl. Her personality seems to be Dolly Parton meets absolutely nothing else. Society said, "wouldn't it be great if we had a new, younger Dolly Parton with absolutely no talent or business acumen" and Hawk Tuah girl managed to occupy that place in our world for a very, very short amount of time.

Well, if you'll excuse me I have to go cancel this app before it charges me $260 to learn soccer skills that will make Hailey Welch hate me. I am glad I downloaded the app so I could learn my husband isn't bald and married people can short circuit AI with their weird texts like Captain Kirk logicing an evil computer to death.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Elizabeth Shope, who doesn't tour a basement in anything less than Boho chic.

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