Area man gets rich on “Chargerrors” with paid emoji

Banking on failure

Author

By Walter Mencken

Publish Date

Oct. 13, 2016

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook addresses a group of tech writers at a special webinar heralding the arrival of paid emojis, a new feature in iOS 10. “This is truly a breakthrough moment for our company,” he explained. “Never before have developers had the opportunity to modify one of our in-house apps, in this case iMessage, for their own benefit. And because the iOS automatically hooks the user up to Apple Pay, there is no need to go through a separate purchasing process for in-app features. Once the user agrees to pay the absurdly low price of one penny per use, they are simply charged every time they employ a particular character. There have been some notable successes with this model — Politico's Flaming Trump comes to mind — but none as astonishing as the Sad Charger.”

“From the first game, I had a bad feeling about this season,” recalls Local computer whiz/DJ D. Spare, creator of the Sad Charger emoji. “When Keenan Allen went down, I knew it was a sign of things to come, and I’m not just talking about the limping parade of ACL injuries. My love life has taught me that it’s easier to express profound emotional experiences with pictures than words: just one is worth a thousand, right? Well, it turns out that this one is worth 345,000, minus Apple’s percentage. Because thanks to Apple, every time someone uses my Sad Charger in an iMessage, I get a penny. I made 30K just off Kaser’s bad hold on that field goal against the Raiders!”

Asked if profiting off his favorite team’s failures left him feeling conflicted, Spare replied, “Hell no. I love the Chargers, but if there’s anything they’ve taught me, it’s that in the end, it ain’t about the love between a city and its team. It’s about the money. Thanks, guys!”