A social app for moods?
Plus, a misunderstood oceanic creature finally gets its flowers.
Today’s issue of PHONE TIME includes: a mood-based social app, ocean sunfish edits, and an update on Facebook’s “Hot Dogs” group.
Instead of documenting life in photos, what if we documented it through our daily moods? That’s the pitch for Ambys, a social app based around bite-sized documentations of your feelings: grateful, hyper, pissed off, meh, shitty, joyful, romantic.
I had been seeing Ambys ads on Instagram and downloaded it. After a short onboarding process—the app is 18+ and requires you to put in your birthdate—you’re greeted by a homepage that is distinctively simple. You can scroll through and interact with users’ moods, which are visually displayed like sticky notes. You can also filter by mood.
The center “+” button allows you to easily publish a mood: a short note plus a feeling category. You can also add an image, thought bubble, or wish for 2026.
Ambys is one of several apps that have emerged as an alternative to Instagram and TikTok. It’s not surprising that Ambys boasts “no AI, no algorithms, no influencers,” attributes that have become increasingly appealing—or at least market well—as people become overwhelmed with the mainstream social media landscape.
Ambys also fits within a category of apps including 1 Second Everyday and even BeReal, which center around short bursts of daily interaction over weeks or months rather than endless scrolling.
Where I hesitate with Ambys is that all of the posts are public. Putting moderation aside (the app has a set of community guidelines which includes a process for reporting violations), I’m not sure how “sticky” a feed of strangers’ emotions will prove to be to users overtime (you can also add friends by username). I’d much rather use it to keep up with friends, maybe in the style of a home screen widget, like Locket.
The mola mola, or ocean sunfish, is no stranger to being the talk of the internet online. The large, flat fish, which can be spotted basking in the sun at the top of the sea, was the star of a 2017 Facebook rant by Scout Burns. That rant subsequently became a copypasta. I’ve linked a dramatic reading of it. Samantha Cole also wrote a great defense of the creature for VICE in 2017.
My first interaction with the mola mola was in seeing the “no stop he needs that” meme (using a photo from Richard Herrmann), which in turn surfaced an entirely new wave of hatred for the creature. My second interaction was seeing one while going whale watching in Southern California. My third interaction was seeing mola mola edits on TikTok and Instagram—which finally put the fish in a different light.
One edit of the sunfish, set to Radiohead’s “Creep,” has gotten over 18 million views on TikTok since October.
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Other edits on TikTok and Instagram similarly portray the mola mola as a misunderstood yet perseverant creature, deserving of respect despite its “uselessness.” As one commenter wrote, “If all god’s creatures will sing together at the end of the days, won’t the humble sunfish be also a part of the choir?”
In one of my first PHONE TIME issues, I wrote about the problem of unrelated (read: MAGA) posting in the Facebook group “Hot Dogs.” I decided to check back in on how things are going. Surprisingly, seemingly on-topic…for the most part.
I haven't tried Ambys, but the sample images you shared kinda remind me of Perfectly Imperfect's social app PI.FYI. PI is entirely designed around recommendations and requests for recommendations. Really interesting to see these Prompt-based social platforms emerge