Some love for EmotionalBagCheck.com
October 28th, 2011
Several months back, I made this project for fun called EmotionalBagCheck.com. It’s a site where you can leave your emotional “baggage”, and then someone else will reply to you with a song they think might be appropriate to your situation. The songs come in through the Grooveshark API, which is kind of fun. I shared the project with my friends, and they thought it was cool, but it didn’t get much traction until September of this year, by which time I’d almost forgotten about it. Suddenly it was getting tons and tons of visitors, largely through articles on All Things D, Wired UK, Marketplace and Good. I have to say, it feels really good to have one’s work acknowledged, especially when it’s a personal project and not something created to someone else’s specifications.
It’s interesting to watch how media attention turns something small into a perceived “legit” entity. I got a good bit of correspondence referring to “you guys” or “your company” — big press denotes a big entity, I guess. With one reporter, no matter how many times I said, “It’s not a company; it’s just me. There’s not a business model; it’s an art project” she’d shoot back something like “What is your position at the company?” Other people assumed it was built by Grooveshark as a marketing tool. Funny how hard it is to convince people that there’s not a catch.
[Art, Grooveshark API, php]
I love emotional bag check so much! I’ve both used it and sent people songs, and I just think it’s such a great tool/art project/way to connect with other human beings. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of emotional baggage around lately though, everytime I go to the site it tells me to check back later…is it still up and running?
It’s still up and running. The traffic has died down a bit, though.
What a shame! Because I totally love the site. Hopefully some other sites will discover it and it will become popular again … with someone other than 15 year olds.
I tried submitting something when it was getting more traffic and I got back four responses. I actually really liked that; it was great seeing different people’s takes on my problem. One of them was mean but hilarious, two of them kinda bland with pretty obvious songs, and one of them was incredibly sweet and had this great song I’d never heard before. Fascinating!
It made me think it be nice to have a public submission space – for people who don’t mind submitting their baggage publicly. That way people can discuss it and compare the most appropriate songs. It’s nice getting more complex feedback … I saw a few people doing that already on Good.is.
Anyway, thanks so much for making it! Even if it doesn’t get much traffic in future, it was a beautiful idea.
Is the site broken? I am trying to use it right now and can’t get it to work!
xoxo!
Hi Natalie,
Which part of the site is giving you trouble?
The site is constantly saying that it has no emotional baggage for me to carry. Is this just happening to me? I can’t imagine there not being any.
Sally, it’s not getting that much traffic anymore, so the baggage is just trickling in slowly. And then other times, we’re just out. I know that spoils the fun. Sorry.
-Robyn
Hey Robyn, emotionalbagcheck was such a great idea. A nice feature you could add in the future is a checkbox where the song sender would mark if he wanted the receiver to be able to contact him for further talk through e-mail (not be anonymous). They could chat and exchange more songs/advices after. Good luck!
hey, just wanted to say what a great site you have. i hope it never goes away! ha. i think it’s just so awesome to unload anonymously and get such a super fast response from somewhere out there. It definitely makes me feel less alone in my neuroses
but seriously, i think it says something optimistic about the human condition, that people are reaching out to each other in this way without any strings attached (on either end). keep it up!!!
Hi Robyn,
I was just introduced to emotionalbackcheck.com this weekend. I love the simplicity of the idea and your execution of it.
Just when I was going to blog about it, I see that you had to take it down for a while. I hope it comes back soon!!
And, keep those great art projects coming!
Hi Robyn,
I love Emotional Bag Check. If I ever get to do a new edition of Net Works: Case studies of web projects, I’d love to have you write a chapter on it. I just wanted to express my solidarity with your insistence on “not being a company” with reporters. I had the same experience back in 2005/2006 with the Delocator.net website.
Cheers!
xtine
Maybe you could put that page with links to organisations that offer professional help back up?
I, uhm, ask for a friend.
Thanks.
Hey, I’ve been checking in and out on emotionalbagcheck and i see it’s still not up. Any chance of it coming back?
Hello, I’m just a simple high schooler and I really want this website back up. I’ve been waiting for half a year and I come back to check up on it every once in a while. Your website is very encouraging and you know, it could possibly be saving lives. Would you please put it back up soon? Thank you.