Gas up this app

The Future. Gas, the app where friends tell you what they love about you, is currently the most popular free app in the App Store despite being available in only 12 states. While any student can sign up and connect with friends at their school, Gas could become the yearbook-style antidote for their social media fatigue.

Spreading the love

Launched in August 2022, Gas’ objective is to make people feel better about themselves.

• According to WSJ, Gas is designed to be a safe space where users can only interact with polls and people they’ve accepted as a friend.
• Gas only shows the grade and gender of the person who voted for a user in a multiple-choice poll, so no one feels awkward about sending a compliment. For the users dying to find out their secret admirers, there’s an option to upgrade to God Mode, a paid subscription that unlocks crush alerts and keeps users’ names hidden in polls, among other juicy features.
• Location data is never tracked or linked to an account. The app only asks for location one time to help people pick their school.
• Gas doesn’t offer direct messages for chatting, and it removes users who may be lying.

The new wave

Creators Nikita Bier (who founded a similar app prior to this project), Isaiah Turner, and Dave Schatz hope that Gas shows users that there are people who love and admire them. In an era where social media has become breeding grounds for all kinds of toxicity, Gas is a refreshing outlier.

While it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Gas thus far — critics of the app believe that excessive data collection could be used for trafficking — it still gives teens a more intimate alternative to larger social networks like Facebook or Instagram, which don’t necessarily resonate with their generation anymore. Gas’ creators are betting that teens will continue smashing the like button to keep the positive vibes flowing.