SliChat: New App Streamlines ‘Text-Spouse’ Relationships

SILICON VALLEY, CA — SliChat, a new text-messaging app from the creators of Snapchat, is set to be released by the week’s end for iOS and Android devices, Snapchat, Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel, has confirmed.

The app promises to make it easier than ever to covertly send and receive text messages, with an emphasis on improving the millions of ‘text-spouse’ relationships worldwide.

“These days everyone has a ‘text-spouse’ and we’ve found that there are very few effective ways for people in these types of relationships to communicate comfortably and guiltlessly,” said Spiegel at a press event early this morning.

“We’re very proud of this new app and we think it will be an instant hit among the millions of emotionally-crippled, unfulfilled people the world over.”

Spiegel’s first hit app, Snapchat, allows users to send and receive photos that ‘self-destruct’ after a short period of time. Users of Snapchat were quick to see the potential for using the service to send clandestine photographs of genitalia to one another, although Spiegel admits that the app could have done more to help these secret relationships flourish emotionally as well as physically.

“A dick pic from your ‘text-spouse’ says 1,000 words, but how many times can you really photograph the same erection before the relationship starts to feel empty? Questions like these were the driving force behind SliChat.”

Some of the key features of SliChat include the ability to have text messages disappear after being read, for messages to only become visible after a unique code has been entered, and for incoming messages to look as though they are coming from your mother.

The blogosphere has already exploded with overwhelming support following the announcement. Blogger and new media expert Erin Reyes is hailing the app as, “revolutionary”.

“In many ways I love my ‘text-spouse’ more than my actual husband,” said Reyes in her blog post celebrating SliChat’s bevy of announced features. “It used to be so difficult to hide who I was texting from my husband, but SliChat promises to make the experience guilt-free and easy.”

“I’ll no longer be forced to go to the kitchen anytime I want to send my ‘text-spouse’ a message about how he’s the only person who truly understands me. Now I can do it right next to my husband while we watch a movie and I won’t have to miss any of the action! It’s a dream come true.”

Katherine Harris, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, has spent several years researching ‘text-spouse’ relationships. She believes SliChat will have an overall positive impact on these amorous liaisons, but the app runs the risk of removing the element of danger from the practice.

“98% of people in otherwise healthy, happy relationships engage in ‘text-spouse’ partnerships,” said Harris during a phone interview. “It’s exciting and a bit thrilling to hide these correspondence from your actual partner, which is one of the main reasons why these furtive relationships thrive.”

“If there were no guilt or stealth in my own ‘text-spouse’ relationship I’m not sure I would even keep up with it. If I don’t feel like I’m doing something naughty then what’s the point?”

A recent Gallup poll revealed that people in every type of committed relationship participate in some form of text-based courtship with a third party. It also confirmed suspicions that the person your significant other is texting at any given moment is their ‘text-spouse’, not their best friend or a family member.

“The data is overwhelming,” says Spiegel. “The people need a way to safely and secretly undermine all the hard work of their real marriages and relationships. SliChat is the solution.”

“If SliChat is responsible for even one divorce or break up then it will have all been worth it.”

Spiegel concluded the press event by teasing his company’s next app, which promises to make it easier than ever to hide your true thoughts and feelings from your significant other.

SliChat will be available as a free download in all app stores by the week’s end.