Make Money by Explaining the Concept of Time to a Banana 🍌⏳💵

Let’s start with the obvious: You read the title and probably thought it was satire. A joke. A metaphor for modern hustle culture. But here’s the kicker — this app actually pays users to explain complex concepts like “time” to inanimate objects, and yes, one of them is a banana.

The app is called “FruityTalk”, and while it sounds like something cooked up by a sleep-deprived philosophy major on too much caffeine and not enough serotonin, it has a user base, a leaderboard, and — most importantly — a real payout system that tracks engagement, creativity, and user ratings. And yes, I tried it.

Let’s break this down from the inside:

What happens when you spend 7 minutes passionately explaining the theory of relativity to a piece of fruit? Apparently — you make money.

🧠 Chapter 2: How the App Works — A Banana That Listens?

When I first downloaded FruityTalk, I thought I was walking into a parody app. The homepage featured a smug-looking banana wearing sunglasses with a tagline:

“They may not talk back, but they’re all ears.”

The app prompts users to choose one of five fruits: banana, apple, avocado, mango, or a pear. Each fruit has a different personality and “intelligence level.” Bananas, according to the developers, are the “philosophers” of the bunch.

Here’s how a typical task works:

You’re assigned a topic (like “What is time?” or “What is fear?”).
You must explain it in a 2-minute audio recording — as if you’re talking to the fruit directly.
Bonus points if you personify the fruit, give examples, and use metaphors that “a banana could understand.”

Users rate each other’s recordings anonymously. If your explanation ranks high (funny, creative, or surprisingly deep), you earn up to $1.25 per task. Low-rated answers still get a few cents.

😂 Chapter 3: My First Time Explaining Time to a Banana

Let’s get into the weird stuff. My first topic was:

“Explain the concept of time to a banana named Dr. Slippy.”

Now, I don’t know who in the dev team decided to name a banana Dr. Slippy, but I accepted the challenge.

I sat on my bed, holding a real banana for full immersion, and began:

“Okay, Dr. Slippy. Time is like a conveyor belt. You’re sitting on it, and it moves whether you want it to or not. You start as a green banana, unripe and impatient. Eventually, you turn yellow — full of energy and flavor. And then… one day… you have spots. You’re wise, soft, and full of stories.”

I layered in metaphors about how bananas bruise over time just like humans accumulate memories, and I wrapped it up with a dramatic:

“Time is what makes your story have meaning, Dr. Slippy.”

I uploaded it, expecting to get 2 stars for absurdity. Instead, I got 4.8 stars and $1.12.

📈 Chapter 4: Why Does This App Exist? And Why Is It Working?

At first glance, this feels like a social experiment. But once I dug deeper, FruityTalk is actually a product of two intersecting trends:

Gamified creative expression apps (like rizzle, Taki, or Collab).
AI training data platforms.

Yes — you guessed it. The banana isn’t just a banana. Your recordings are being used to train AI to understand emotion, metaphor, and informal speech. The idea is that by talking to fruit (or pretending to), you strip away performance anxiety and speak more naturally, weirdly, and creatively.

It’s like Duolingo meets improv comedy meets data monetization.

And because of the absurdity, users don’t copy each other. Every explanation is wildly original — which is exactly what machine learning algorithms need.

💡 Chapter 5: Other Weird Topics People Got Paid For

Talking to Dr. Slippy wasn’t even the weirdest thing I encountered. Users in the FruityTalk forums reported:

Explaining quantum mechanics to a mango with anxiety.
Describing the meaning of regret to an avocado that believes it’s immortal.
Teaching a pear how elections work while pretending it’s a 7-year-old alien diplomat.

And yes, all of these paid real money, ranging from $0.40 to $1.50 per task.

🧪 Chapter 6: The Science of Talking to Fruit — Is It Actually Useful?

Strangely enough, psychologists have studied “object-directed speech” for years. It turns out, when humans talk to non-living things:

We loosen mental filters, becoming more creative.
We tend to externalize emotion, leading to better emotional regulation.
We practice simplifying complex ideas, which is crucial in education and communication training.

FruityTalk is essentially monetizing these benefits — you learn, you laugh, and you get paid.

💸 Chapter 7: My Earnings After One Week

After 7 days of using the app (roughly 45 minutes per day), here’s what I earned:

🟡 39 completed “fruit talks”
⭐ Average rating: 4.6 stars
💵 Total earnings: $38.75
🥇 Top-ranked talk: “Explaining déjà vu to a suspicious pineapple”

The app pays out via PayPal every Friday. You need to earn a minimum of $15 for withdrawal.

🧠 Chapter 8: How to Maximize Your Earnings

If you’re thinking of trying FruityTalk, here’s how to boost your income:

Treat the fruit like a real person. Add a name, personality, and mood.
Use metaphors. Fruit-based ones work best. (“Time is like how you ripen.”)
Be dramatic. This isn’t a TED Talk. This is theater with potassium.
Keep it funny but clever. Don’t just say silly things — say smart silly things.
Upvote others to get visibility and community respect.

🤯 Chapter 9: The Existential Crisis of Talking to Fruit for Cash

There was a moment — somewhere around explaining linear time to a neurotic lemon — when I asked myself:

“Is this what the future of work looks like?”

And you know what? Maybe yes.

People used to say TikTok dances and meme stocks were “not real jobs.” But they were. Now we’re monetizing imagination itself — turning abstract expression into micro-income.

Talking to a banana isn’t just absurdist art. It’s a business model.

🛠️ Chapter 10: What Could Go Wrong?

Of course, no app is perfect. Here are a few caveats:

Privacy concerns: Your recordings are used for AI training. Read the fine print.
Humor fatigue: After 30 fruit explanations, your creativity might need caffeine.
Ratings wars: Some users downvote top talent to climb leaderboards.
Existential dread: Explaining entropy to an apple can leave you questioning life.

But for every weird bug, there’s a review praising how this app got them out of creative burnout, or helped them learn how to explain things better in real life.

🏁 Final Chapter: So, Should You Explain Time to a Banana?

Absolutely.

Not because it’s logical. But because it’s beautifully illogical.

FruityTalk turns nonsense into cents, and metaphors into micro-payments.

It rewards people not for perfection — but for absurd bravery. For the willingness to say:

“I’m going to treat this banana like it’s listening… and I’m going to make it understand.”

And in that moment, you’re not just talking to fruit.

You’re connecting, creating, and — strangely — earning.

✅ Sources

FruityTalk official website & terms: https://www.fruitytalk.app
Psychology Today – Why We Talk to Inanimate Objects (2022)
Wired: “The Rise of Absurdist Gig Apps” (2024)
AI Data Marketplace Research, Stanford AI Lab (2023)
Reddit Thread: r/WeirdSideHustles – “Explaining Taxes to an Orange??”
Interview with FruityTalk top user @BananaScholar, 2025

Written by the author, Fatima Al-Hajri 👩🏻‍💻