Posted on February 3, 2018
*Insert Part About Owning Your Soul*
For this assignment, I will be writing the Terms of Service for the apocalypse.
*clears throat* Let us begin.
Terms of Service-Intro
The following terms govern your access to our services including making your life hell, running from scary ghouls/zombies/people trying to kill you and flashbacks to the good old days. By using the Services you agree to be bound by these Terms.
Terms of Service-Privacy Policy
The privacy policy of the apocalypse dictates that when using any of our services (refer to previously mentioned) you will consent to the collection, use and transfer of your information. Thus meaning that we, the apocalypse, can use personal details (e.g. your fear of clowns) to make your life worse via nightmares or IRL (in real life) interactions.
Terms of Service-Cookies Policy
The Cookies Policy of the apocalypse is simple: if one finds cookies they must hoard them and not give them to the rest of the group. This will cause conflict that eventually leads to A) a member of your survivors’ group leaving or B) a member of your survivors’ group avoiding conflict but acting really weird towards you. In no situation will you share the cookies. Sharing cookies with your group leads to automatic dismissal from the apocalypse (re: death).
Terms of Service-Community Guidelines
The following terms apply to the individuals and the greater surviving group that those individuals abide in.
Firstly, the individual (user) will only have one person in the group that they know from pre-apocalypse times. This pre-apocalypse person can be a significant other, family member or friend from childhood. Everyone else in the group must be someone that they met in a weird situation like at a gas station while raiding for supplies or they were all caught in an elevator while the apocalypse began.
After a group of users has been formed, they must observe the following terms.
A group cannot have a harmonious relationship as the users must get on each others nerves. There must also be a repressed conflict that eventually comes to the surface and causes a horrific homicide. Additionally, there must be the following during a users apocalypse experience:
- discoveries e.g. your significant other does not love you,
- betrayals e.g. your significant other sacrifices your life for 2 ply toilet paper,
- and reversals e.g. realizing the strangers you were going to kill for their supplies are not strangers at all, it’s your cousin and old elementary school teacher.
Finally, at least two people must fall in love in the group. However, their relationship will be ended in a tragic way (i.e. death, betrayal, torture).
Terms of Service-Summary
Under no circumstances will a sense of normalcy be achieved for the users. The users must suffer through the apocalypse without being able to go back to the way things “used to be”.
The creators of the apocalypse would like to thank you for using our service. We would also like to say that there’s no point in trying to live through this (we commend your effort though).
If you agree to the Terms of Service, please comment:
“I agree to the terms of service.”
Behind the Process
I started this assignment by getting inspiration for what I should put in my Terms of Service. I searched Terms of Service templates and I came across this really helpful website. The difficult part of this assignment was trying to keep my language formal enough, but still keeping it light. I do mention death and homicide a bunch, but I think that mentioning these added to the apocalyptic flavor I was going for. I did find it easy to come up with examples for the aspects that I mentioned in the Terms of Service. E.g. betrayals- your significant other sacrifices your life for 2 ply toilet paper. Most of the examples I came up with were inspired by apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies, comics or books I have indulged in. I think I did a good job of breaking up my Terms of Service into sections. I think this not only helped me break the assignment up, but it also helped my readers fully experience my Terms of Service. Of course, making my Terms of Service easy to read is ironic since the point of the Terms of Service is for them to be almost illegible and undesirable to read. I really liked this assignment as it allowed me to create Terms of Service. This is most likely the only time I will do this seeing as you have to be a lawyer to make the Terms of Service. Creating the Terms of Service taught me to imagine myself as a person who frequently produces this type of content. Doing this allowed me to think about the user’s experience and the parts of their soul, I mean information, that I would own. In this assignment, I would like to improve, once again, my grammar and general formatting. I feel like I am good at writing the words itself, but failing at the grammatical side of it all.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my Terms of Service for the Apocalypse. I’ll catch you on the flipside.
Nice. What I’m particularly interested in when we do these weird writing assignments, particularly writing something we wouldn’t typically write, is how we can infuse a story into our work.
I agree, I feel like for us as non-writers of ToS we naturally infuse a story into them whereas the lawery types who write them for a living have had that creative desire to tell stories beat out of them. I do think that would be a good exercise for students as well. To “create an app” and draft their own ToS. I predict those ToS would be a lot more user friendly and legible than those written in the Valley.
This seems very formal, but it is pretty funny! I like how you added oddly specific example scenarios and situations the people must agree to.
Thanks! I love adding obscure and weirdly specific things 😂
I agree to the terms of service.