The New Aesthetic

Everyone is out having a great time — no, not just great, an amazing time — and you’re on the couch, hovering on the border between pajamas and underwear. Suddenly, the quick, the beautiful and the fully dressed invade: chirps from phones and pop-ups on screens are announcing their social media check-ins, mapping out the lands of awesome times. None of those places, needless to say, are your living room. […]

Now Mr. Fountain, Mr. Isaf and two other friends have come up with an app to ease this malady. Called CouchCachet, the app finds all the coolest places in your neighborhood, then automatically uses Foursquare to check you into them — with none of the irritation of actually leaving the couch. […]

More than simply creating a geo-mirage, CouchCachet will also tweet lyrics by indie bands that people haven’t heard of. “It will wax poetic about local microbrews that you just discovered at some cool speakeasy,” said Mr. Fountain, 36, of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. “It will also upload low-fi pictures of 20-somethings in skinny jeans to your Instagram.”

In short, he said: “It will live the lifestyle that you need to project to others. You can finally be who you want people to think you are. They don’t know you’re sitting at home, getting caught up on ‘Downton Abbey.’ ” […]

Suppose, someone asked, a friend using CouchCachet was checked into the same places that CouchCachet has also checked you into? “This is fine!” Mr. Fountain said. “This is robots talking to robots. This is the future.”