There's nothing wrong with the app per se. However, there is something clearly wrong with it being as popular and valued as high as it is. A concept piece should not be worth millions of dollars and be surrounded with as much hype as Yo appears to be.
And while you're right about metacontextual information being a thing - that problem is not one that Yo actually solves. I don't see anyone saying yos are completely useless, but people have already been exchanging these kinds of messages for decades (they're known as emoticons and emoji.) In that regard the only thing Yo has going for it is it's UI.
Which, granted, may be a draw - but it's still not worth the coverage it's getting.
Also it's worth pointing out that "stupid" and "fun" can be overlapping sets. Case in point: Angry Birds. Clearly fun, also clearly kind of stupid.
I don't know that those make a compelling argument for Yo, though. How many were worth that much money in their day, or would have become worth what they are without the cachet of the artist?
While it pains me to say it, there is case to be made for Yo as a work of art, if art can be accidental (I guess all real memes are accidental art in a way, and Yo's popularity seems memetic to me.) And perhaps the ephemeral nature of the medium works against it, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to care about Yo fifty years from now.
And while you're right about metacontextual information being a thing - that problem is not one that Yo actually solves. I don't see anyone saying yos are completely useless, but people have already been exchanging these kinds of messages for decades (they're known as emoticons and emoji.) In that regard the only thing Yo has going for it is it's UI.
Which, granted, may be a draw - but it's still not worth the coverage it's getting.
Also it's worth pointing out that "stupid" and "fun" can be overlapping sets. Case in point: Angry Birds. Clearly fun, also clearly kind of stupid.