Building a chrome extension to redact words online that trigger Verbophobia
Why this project:
Verbophobia – It’s the fear of specific trigger words.
In this condition, hearing, reading or thinking about these words or the mental images associated with these words may cause physical and mental symptoms such as fainting, nausea and panic attacks.
Often diseases can be controlled with care. For example, if you have diabetes, you can control your diet. With Verbophobia, you can never know when it will hit you.
- You’re watching a show on Netflix, it’s a Korean love story and you think the way these Koreans express love is so pure. And then unexpectedly, a conversation about health issues comes up and your trigger word is mentioned.
- Your legs have been paining mildly since yesterday, you want to search online for potential reasons (Bad idea, but you’re only human). You go through an article that talks about such cases and tells the potential reasons possible. You come across a trigger word and now you have to lie down and follow a protocol to come back to normal
There’s a weird loop here, because even talking about it, in cases when you want to tell about it to a friend or a doctor will also make you get triggered.
No one should have to live in this fear.
What’s the project:
So for my trigger words, I created a Chrome extension.
The extension scans the webpage for all trigger words in all cases and removes them, blurs them or replaces them with other words like Unicorns and Rainbows.
The language used is JavaScript and HTML.
Right now, the current version can
- Take target trigger words – Input in the extension itself
- Replace it with a substitute word – Hard coded as <reacted> right now
Next, I’m working on adding these features:
- Add an option to give a Google sheet URL containing the trigger words so that you don’t get triggered while adding the keywords.
Extension File:
The current code files are added above. They will be updated on complete development
Special Mentions:
I picked this project up because my friends Hanshika and Priyank introduced me to Buildspace Nights and Weekends.
I wouldn’t have the motivation or discipline to do this without them.
For anyone who enjoys building products, features or anything at all, Buildspace is the place to go!
It’s a series of webinars organized twice a week for 5 weekends. And each week is about a different stage of building – starting from ideation to tinkering to launch. There’s no entry fee and there isn’t a huge prize too. It’s just a bunch of folks running webinars to keep you disciplined and follow up with you.
Also, big thanks to Khan , for helping me learn JavaScript and tutoring me through the entire development process.
He’s an exceptional front end developer who is smart, disciplined and maintains a sense of ownership towards the project.