Michelle’s Rating: 1/5 Stars

An app equally as exciting as taking middle school Photo Booth pictures in the Apple store, Helium Booth takes users back in time to a land where face distortions are still the norm.

Over the past month, Helium Booth videos have taken over Twitter, Facebook and iMessage. Not surprisingly, they have all derived from a high school crowd.

In addition to face distortions, Helium Booth offers the option of changing the tone of one’s voice to either a “high” or, my personal favorite, “low” setting. In addition, there are six options that change appearances: Green Monster, Owl Eyes, Square Head, Fat, Square Chin and Big Head.

Even though it may seem like there are a lot of options, I would prefer if the app included more color–changing, vocal and visual options instead of just a select few.

Essentially, Helium Booth is used to make silly videos with funny faces and allows users to play them back.

To be honest, I still do not understand the hype over this app. Yes, it does end short–lived boredom for about two or three minutes, but five videos later, this app becomes useless. I expected the app to have exciting, new features, but in reality, it is almost the same as the Photo Booth app built into the school’s iPads.

“It’s a fun app, but it’s targeted towards children instead of high schoolers,” junior  Ryan Dicristo said.

Another downside to the app is the constant advertisements that pop up in between video takes. These advertisements can be bothersome because they are difficult to click out of, and many times, the app has to be restarted in order to get back to it.

The upside to this app is that it is free, and there is a version of the app for just 99 cents that has less advertisements and more facial distortions.

This app is obviously meant to appeal primarily to children, but it might also be useful to keep on your phone for occupying sporatic boredom.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this app for anyone above the age of 12.