On New Year’s Eve, I went to dinner in Los Angeles to close out 2017 with friends. Naturally, the meal ended with me white-knuckling my phone, my eyeballs glued open and my mind laser-focused on spitting up ephemeral internet trivia like who is the most followed celebrity on Instagram (Selena Gomez) or which book topped Goodreads’ best-of list in 2017 (“Little Fires Everywhere”). That’s because, just as the check arrived, HQ beckoned: The live trivia app had announced a surprise game, and if I wanted a shot at answering 12 multiple-choice questions and vying for a share of the $18,000 pot, I had to tap in instantly.

For the next 15 minutes, I was not exactly human. I was a slave to HQ.

HQ blasted out of obscurity this fall to become the best worst thing on the internet. It’s the most popular app that barely even works. The questions (“How many times does the word ‘sex’ appear in the U.S. Constitution?”) can be so obscure as to be meaningless, and the wording (“What is the more common plural form for octopus?”) is frequently indecipherable. (The hugely controversial “correct” answer: octopuses.) Some questions (“Which retro fashion style did NOT make a comeback this year?”) basically test opinions. Others, which mine inconsequential information about obscure start-ups, stink strongly of advertorials.

Then there’s the app itself, which is riddled with glitches and lags. Players are regularly booted from the game without explanation. The live host’s face is frequently obscured by the wheel of death. Sometimes, the whole game is scrapped for mysterious technical reasons — including one high-stakes game scheduled for 11:45 p.m. EST on New Year’s Eve, which was unceremoniously aborted, then rescheduled for 45 minutes later — the game I hopped into.

And yet, as many as half a million people are tuning in for each session. It’s maybe the only real appointment viewing across all of entertainment right now. Why?