Creativity Wasted

Idea: A DJ-in-a-box for a Covid-era wedding (or other social event). It'd be extremely cheap because the socially-distanced event would only have around 10 people in attendance and therefore wouldn't justify the cost of a normal DJ. It'd consist of an oscillating fan with some laser pointers taped to it, a pack of three "smart light bulbs" to put around the venue, and a Spotify playlist which you...

Idea: A barrier that surrounds a table or desk to block pets from jumping onto the table and eating your food. It would have sliding doors on your side of the table to either allow you to access the table, or block the table when you need to leave the table to go get ketchup. It would have a hand crank to allow you to lower it below the surface of the table when its not being used, so you don't ha...

Idea: A virtual-reality simulation of your daily commute to work, to help make you feel like your life has returned to post-Covid normalcy. You'll get the sensation of moving a couple hundred feet every few minutes, just like a real commute. You can simulate driving inconveniences such as stressful traffic jams (by locking the virtual-reality helmet onto your head until you're late logging onto yo...

Idea: A dark and exploitative game show where poor or jobless contestants compete for basic human needs, such as health insurance, basic income, or citizenship. Also: eliminating taxes for game show winnings because the poor depend on those winnings; the British game show called "Beat the Crusher" where they crush your car if you lose; an idea for a celebrity game show called "Loan Shark Tank" whe...

Idea: A home renovation TV show for the homes or habitats of wild animals (bears, beavers, birds, etc). Examples of renovations include a recliner for a sloth, "salmon on tap" for a bear, and an even dirtier toilet for a sewer rat. The TV show could show sad back stories (such as a penguin getting covered with oil during an oil spill) and could give the animals special gifts (like a prosthetic leg...

Idea: Traveling "food circuses"which are each based on a specific genre of food (Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Greek, etc.). Cooks and market vendors from that country would serve/sell food of every class of that food genre (markets, street food, normal everyday restaurants, fancy 4-star restaurants). The food circus would have scheduled activities, like speeches from famous chefs or cooking lessons. It...

Idea: A kit for toy drone enthusiasts to convert an attic vent to a "drone doggy-door" and put a grid of wireless drone charging stations in their attic. They could then register their house as a "drone charging station" to create a nationwide "drone charging network", thus allowing people to gradually fly toy drones (which are connected to the cell phone network) across the country Originally fro...

Idea: An hourly drone rental service for sightseeing at the Grand Canyon (or some other vacation destination), where you'd control the drone remotely from your computer, tablet, or VR headset. Afterwards, it would send you 4k video recorded by the drone. Also: why sightseeing vacations don't make sense; social drones which have a screen that shows your face Originally from Creativity Wasted episod...

Idea: An anonymous messaging app to allow disgruntled drivers to send angry text messages to other drivers using their license plate. It would instantly cause a huge spike of deaths from these disgruntled drivers crashing while trying to send angry texts. But these aren't the best people anyway. Also: joyriding in someone else's car to cause them to get woken up by angry messages; an angry message...

Idea: An app to listen to people talking to you and come up with responses for you to say, so you don't have to pay attention if you're bored. Although, if people like talking to your app more than talking to you, it might crush your self-esteem. Also: an hour-long Harry Potter play written by a "predictive text" algorithm; the app could steer the conversation in a direction which would capture yo...

Idea: An electronic wedding ring that can log when and where you take it off, to prevent cheaters from taking off their wedding rings. Although, if sunspots knock out the GPS satellites, it'd be like "Cheater Christmas". And in the future, when most people have "augmented reality" glasses, the glasses could augment how other people see the married person, to either make them appear uglier or hide...

Idea: A nearly empty house where almost everything is wheeled in and out by robots. Things like toilets would be cleaned in a neighborhood warehouse when they're wheeled out. Services such as cooking and laundry would also be offered by the neighborhood so you don't have to do it and also you don't need to own the appliances. Also: The silly self-cleaning house from the TV sitcom Home Improvement...

Idea: To have an intern follow you around and record or write down things that happen to you and your thoughts about them (as they happen or shortly thereafter), so you have material available to write a great memoir. Also: the intern could secretly manipulate your life to make it more interesting for the memoir Originally from Creativity Wasted episode 56 Jacqui Marpa (twitter.com/JacquiMarpa) Am...

Idea: Since we have apps which can distribute information to and amongst customers, we don't really need food safety regulations and other government regulations which suffocate small businesses. We could even have "free-for-all" business districts in extremely poor neighborhoods, where residents of that neighborhood are allowed to run businesses out of their homes without obtaining business licen...

Idea: To use Amanda's chore bartering app to hire someone do "small talk" for you, like a "small talk bouncer" or a "Jacqui replacement" who is wearing a Jacqui mask (Tom's idea). Or maybe, instead of doing small talk for you, they'd help guide you through the small talk, like a "small talk coach". Also: a velvet rope for your body Originally from Creativity Wasted episode 56 Jacqui Marpa (twitter...

Idea: An app for bartering/swapping house chores with strangers in your neighborhood, with a Tinder-style approval process for bartering partners, so you don't end up with a creep who might do weird things with your dirty laundry. Also: How the NextDoor app devolves into gossip and negativity Originally from Creativity Wasted episode 56 Jacqui Marpa (twitter.com/JacquiMarpa) Amanda Brewington (fac...

Idea: A celebrity cooking competition between Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsay, and Bobby Flay. Jacqui wants Bourdain or Ramsay to humiliate Bobby Flay, and maybe also beat him up physically, because she doesn't like Bobby Flay's smug condescending smile and pedestrian dishes Originally from Creativity Wasted episode 56 Jacqui Marpa (twitter.com/JacquiMarpa) Amanda Brewington (facebook.com/amanda.b...

Idea: A social media network where you don't have to scroll, you just view your wall like a YouTube slideshow. When you post, if the post is longer than 30 seconds, you'd have to make a preview for the post. The slideshow of your wall would show just the previews, and if you decide you want to watch the longer clip, you'd be able to immediately watch the longer clip or queue the longer clip. When...

Idea: A TV show about a TV writer who secretly manipulates events in his daughter's life in a criminal and psychopathic way, to give her a happy and emotionally-heightened life, like the sitcoms or family dramas that he writes. The criminal and/or immoral acts (slashing tires, faking social media posts, murder, etc.) he does to other people to manipulate them to give his daughter a better life are...

Idea: An app to give you ideas for excuses for missing work or being late for work. It could help you physically harm yourself or provide other fake evidence to make your chosen excuse more believable. It could keep track of the excuses you've already given, and also track the overall success rate of each excuse. It could tally the total loss to the economy from people getting away with missing wo...

Idea: An app that somehow determines where your boss or supervisor is, and vibrates or otherwise alerts you if he/she is approaching, so you can pretend to be busy working Originally from Creativity Wasted episode 55 Justin McLeod (twitter.com/jibtron_zero) Jeff Ford (twitter.com/Comicjeff10) Tom Walma (twitter.com/thomaswalma) Recorded at Podcast Detroit (https://PodcastDetroit.com)

Idea: A grill built into the tailgate of a truck, for the purposes of tailgating (partying before a college sporting event). After leaving the game, if a driver is tailgating you (driving too close behind you), you could release the meat grease and ash onto the hood of their car. Also: Maybe the combination of rain and the wind from the moving truck could clean the grill Originally from Creativity...

Idea: Toilet paper which is temporarily waterproof on one side, so you don't have to wad up or fold the toilet paper to keep from getting gross butt water on your hands while wiping, and it eventually dissolves after you flush it down the toilet Originally from Creativity Wasted episode 55 Justin McLeod (twitter.com/jibtron_zero) Jeff Ford (twitter.com/Comicjeff10) Tom Walma (twitter.com/thomaswal...

Idea: To sell hi-tech Japanese toilets in America. Also: to help Americanize them, they should come with audio of a physical trainer telling you to "push it", and should be sturdier, so the toilet seats don't crack when fat Americans sit on them Originally from Creativity Wasted episode 54 Gwen Hope (twitter.com/gwenhopecomedy) Ron Rigby (twitter.com/RonRigby) Joe Williams (twitter.com/JoeDoubleYo...

Idea: An app to analyze your social media posts after you press the post button, and if the app determines that a post might be passive-aggressive, angry, or harmful to your reputation, it puts the post in "post jail" for a day to force you re-think the post, and then you must confirm that you really want to post it before anyone can see it. Also: friends could review your posts before allowing yo...