Have you ever wondered where your phone-obsessed friends, family and coworkers have been disappearing to weekdays at 3pm and daily at 9pm for the past few months?
They’re hanging out with Scott Rogowsky, the host of HQ — a new trivia app that’s part live game show, part stand-up and all about rewarding the smartest amongst us with actual greenbacks. Jimmy Kimmel’s hosted. Ellen’s into it. Where’ve you been?!
Here’s the concept: After you download the free app you, and hundreds of thousands of other contestants, will get daily notifications come game time (you can see how many people you’re up against by way of a counter located in the corner of your screen). Enter Scott, an affable comedian with a penchant for millennial-meets-dad jokes (the self-proclaimed “Quizzie McGuire” drops lines like, “Hey, HQties! I am your host with the challah French toast!”), and each game’s 12 questions. They run the gambit of sports, politics, news, entertainment and the truly bizarre. A ten-second clock starts as he begins reading each question — leaving no time to Siri yourself a correct answer — and at the end of the 12 the people with the most correct answers split a pot of money.
That’s right, an actual prize worth $1,000 and sometimes be as much as $15,000. When there’re a bunch of winners you might see your PayPal account credited with enough change to cover a cup of coffee; when questions are super savage your spoils of war can be a whole lot more.
I want that MONEY!
Well … do as we say, not as we do (this particular writer tends to bomb out around question four or five). And assemble a squad of varied backgrounds to compete as one (then split the kitty amongst your team). Questions vary from common knowledge to super obscure, so don’t dismiss the weirdo next to you on the bus.
HQ’s getting a lot of press for shifting our binge/on demand lifestyles back to tuning in to an event at a specific time. And Rogowsky thinks that’s a very good thing.
“It’s just a positive, joyous jubilation on the internet, which is so rare,” he told Business Insider. “It’s usually a very sad and angry place. But I think HQ is injecting some positivity back into the mix.”
So go download the app and join the weird HQ revolution before it inevitably loses its popularity. You could be a thousand-aire by the weekend
The “HQ — Live Trivia Game Show” app can be downloaded for free on iTunes and it works on iOS devices.
