Virtual Dating Assistant
April 29, 2018 6:26 AM   Subscribe

"Every morning I wake up to the same routine. I log into the Tinder account of a 45-year-old man from Texas—a client. I flirt with every woman in his queue for 10 minutes, sending their photos and locations to a central database of potential 'Opportunities.' For every phone number I get, I make $1.75."
posted by clawsoon (105 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow, disrupting being an abusive jerk. Internet culture is eating itself.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:32 AM on April 29, 2018 [25 favorites]


Well, this is all kinds of terrible.

"These people are oftn in their early 20s; young women with less dating savvy are easy targets for the company’s methods."

OF COURSE THEY ARE.

I love how they are doing all this work and getting paid and then their client just doesn't bother to follow up either. Not to mention the "alpha male" shit and what happens if anyone does meet IRL and is unpleasantly surprised.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:37 AM on April 29, 2018 [12 favorites]


Well, this explains a LOT about my online dating history as of late.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:46 AM on April 29, 2018 [24 favorites]


I wake up every day very glad to be married and out of the dating scene, but after reading this, I am VERY VERY glad, and I also feel like I need a good scrub. Good LORD, people.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 6:48 AM on April 29, 2018 [33 favorites]


Dear [MATCH NAME], You seem like an Alpha Male. What's your secret? A) Axe body spray, B) set of katanas from QVC, C) reading online dating gurus from your pod on Uber's campus
posted by clawsoon at 6:48 AM on April 29, 2018 [52 favorites]


This was equally fascinating and scary at the same time.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 6:52 AM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


Throughout the whole time I was reading this, I kept wondering what happens when one closer turns out to be actually talking to another closer. Two people from the same company being paid to talk to each other. There’s a good chance they’d be able to tell, because they’re both using the guidebooks, but would they tell the company? Or would they just swap phone numbers and let it sort itself out?
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:55 AM on April 29, 2018 [93 favorites]


Humanity, I am very disappointed in you right now.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:58 AM on April 29, 2018 [9 favorites]


MexicanYenta, I think you have the makings of a romcom plot here.
posted by selfmedicating at 6:59 AM on April 29, 2018 [82 favorites]


This Summer:
CLOSER AND CLOSER
These two Virtual Dating Assisstants have been flirting online for years, but when they cross paths IRL, the sparks will fly- and the Tinder will really catch fire! Starring Tom Hanks photoshopped to look twenty years younger and Anne Hathaway with a French accent.
posted by phooky at 7:00 AM on April 29, 2018 [135 favorites]


Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The: Humanity, I am very disappointed in you right now.

Username checks out.
posted by clawsoon at 7:01 AM on April 29, 2018 [30 favorites]


I got married in 2009, but before that, I tried online dating (which was pretty much in its infancy back then). It was either craigslist, OkCupid, and one of the ones you had to pay for (e-Harmony, etc). It was awful then but holy cow, it is mega awful now. I salute each and every one of you who are in the trenches of online dating in 2018. You deserve cake (and a decent human being who will love you for who you are).
posted by Kitteh at 7:07 AM on April 29, 2018 [11 favorites]


I'm pretty sure I read something similar in a sci-fi short story or book. Anyone remember what it was?
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:12 AM on April 29, 2018


I hate late capitalism.
posted by gwint at 7:12 AM on April 29, 2018 [18 favorites]


Our culture is responsible for this. This thing has roots.

We all have outsourced "servants". The people mining for rare earth that gets used in smartphones. The people who build parts. The computers. Our clothes. The earth. The very food we eat.

This is just about everywhere. This goes deeper.
posted by aniola at 7:14 AM on April 29, 2018 [25 favorites]


Nothing in this article has me convinced these "professionals" have any kind of secret sauce.

Open with a short message that references their profile. Keep it simple. Try to set up a date in three messages. These are just basic rules of thumb. If the dating assistants have a higher success rate than their clients, it's probably because they have all day to spend on it. It really is a numbers game.

I think the sad part is not that these dating assistants exists, but the fact that online dating is so broken to begin with. 200,000 years of evolution and this really is the best we could come up with? The world's most tedious game of Hot or Not?

It's pretty clear these apps weren't designed to make us happy or help us find love. They were built by programmers, product managers, designers, executives, and business development people. Their purpose is to keep users engaged, beat out competing apps, and of course, to make money.

What if an online dating app were run by a nonprofit, and designed by anthropologists and therapists? What if an app was actually designed to help us find love? What would that even look like?
posted by panama joe at 7:25 AM on April 29, 2018 [70 favorites]


Filed under Dystopian.
posted by tommasz at 7:25 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


I call bullshit on the founder's list of relatively innocuous books that have informed his practice. This is all straight up MRA shit, and when it works it's gotta be because he's feeding into that psychology in the clients and manipulating the prospects using the nasty tricks that exploit people highly programmed by a misogynist society:
“There’s no question about it,” reads one chapter, “women want to date the alpha male. They are naturally drawn to the ‘leader of the pack.’” Valdez elaborates later in the manual: “The alpha male is the selector, he chooses… he is not chosen.” But how do you present yourself as an Alpha? “Never compliment her without a qualification,” he writes. “Let her know what you want in a woman and make her explain why she fits those criteria.”
the training staff have repeatedly told me that my writing is “too female,” a characteristic that has never been fully explained. To mitigate this “error,” I’ve been told I need to use shorter sentences, ask fewer questions, use fewer smileys, wait longer to reply, and set up dates before even asking if the woman is interested. If a woman doesn’t respond to our cheesy pick-up lines or cough up her number by the third message, I’m instructed to move on, as the match is no longer cost-effective.
one match told me that she’d just put down her family dog. Still in training, I wasn’t sure what to do. I wrote out an apology for her loss and sent it to my instructor for approval. He crossed out my response and wrote underneath: “Alpha Males don’t apologize.”
The ironic bit there is that this process works by weeding out all those who rejected this client, "targeting hundreds of women" with each clickbait opener - not that he is somehow above being "chosen," or is the selector, but that the writers are the ones wading through the rejectors instead of the client, preserving his fragile ego. While meanwhile deceiving and stringing along women not aware that something's fishy.

I also call bullshit on the claim about "one-third women" as clients. But it is interesting to compare the women's site with the [default by the way] men's site:
You don’t have that kind of time... and even if you do, you’d rather spend those hours at the gym, a salon or heck... doing anything else!
You’ll feel like “the Bachelorette.” The only question is…who will earn your rose?
I also just can't believe how little this pays writers to do something much grosser than most copywriting.
posted by Miko at 7:36 AM on April 29, 2018 [46 favorites]


What if an online dating app were run by a nonprofit, and designed by anthropologists and therapists? What if an app was actually designed to help us find love?

what if we had a society willing to rebalance these huge inequities that create vast gulfs between the time-poor/cash-rich and time-rich/cash-poor, that feed a system where some have no time or capacity for the basic self-care tasks that make people feel human and more money than they can possibly ever meaningfully spend, where others can only make a living by performing basic tasks of self-care on behalf of other humans who cannot or will not do them for themselves? i would like an app for that, pls.
posted by halation at 7:40 AM on April 29, 2018 [23 favorites]


Miko: This is all straight up MRA shit, and when it works it's gotta be because he's feeding into that psychology in the clients and manipulating the prospects using the nasty tricks that exploit people highly programmed by a misogynist society

These techniques select for women who are prone to anxiety to begin with and who have a further tendency to mistake anxiety for attraction and love. (Not surprising that economic anxiety contributes.)
posted by clawsoon at 7:43 AM on April 29, 2018 [18 favorites]


We all have outsourced "servants". The people mining for rare earth that gets used in smartphones. The people who build parts. The computers. Our clothes. The earth. The very food we eat.

While I fully appreciate the problem of alienation in modern society, outsourcing labour has been the basis of all human civilisation since the development of agriculture. I think this commercial gaslighting business has its identifiable roots in more specific contemporary problems, most notably the incredible inequality of wealth that makes it economically feasible for them to find clients and maintain a workforce.
posted by howfar at 7:45 AM on April 29, 2018 [21 favorites]


Yeah, I was about to say, if those things count as outsourcing servants, then we have been doing that since the first hominin traded a lump of ochre for a stone chopper.
posted by tavella at 7:52 AM on April 29, 2018 [8 favorites]


(...] highly programmed by a misogynist society

These techniques select for women who are prone to anxiety to begin with and who have a further tendency to mistake anxiety for attraction and love.


Where do you think those tendencies come from? Could it be... SATAN? sorry, that's my silly oldness talking there. It's the programming of our misogynist society.

Bonus points for those who recognize that it's also teaching men anxiety, just flipped to the aggression ("fight/be an alpha") side of it as opposed to women who get the "flight/submissiveness" side.

Equality! It's better for everyone.

I gave up on online dating many years ago. Still single going on 14 years, but happily so, tons less anxiety, and have made some great friends.
posted by fraula at 7:57 AM on April 29, 2018 [11 favorites]


I've been in a relationship since back when internet dating was more creepy than ubiquitous, and this article made me realize that on some level I just assumed Tinder et al were chock full of bots, serial killers, and paid accounts like this, and that normal users just had to filter for that.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:08 AM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


Not to abuse the edit window: Is that not the case?
posted by aspersioncast at 8:09 AM on April 29, 2018


“Before my life had gotten so crazy, I’d managed to develop some material that worked really well on the dating sites I was using."

Develop material. Who the fuck even thinks like that? I mean, other than the kind of KPI-driven, redpilled growth-hacking brolet who'd found an odious enterprise like this.

I don't know which to despair at more, the latent misogyny, the latent self-loathing, or the fundamental paradigm that human interaction is something to be gamed out ahead of time, with the "winningest" strategies used as the seed state for the next round in some grotesque douchery-optimizing genetic algorithm.
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:13 AM on April 29, 2018 [25 favorites]


You'd think helping such obviously terrible & soulless people would pay better than $12/hour.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:23 AM on April 29, 2018 [10 favorites]


So as far as I can tell, this is a straight people thing?
posted by inconstant at 8:26 AM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


And she only makes $12 an hour! $12 an hour, folks!

In terms of the "outsourcing servants" thing, I think that the comment is getting at something, though. The essence of capitalism is supposed to be specialization - it's more effective if one expert producer makes all the widgets than if we each take hours home-making our own, less-good widgets. But what it really is, is "outsourcing things that are dangerous or unpleasant or that we feel we're too good to do". Cobalt miners aren't any better at cobalt mining than I would be given a little training and practice, they're just socially marginalized so they have to do it. It's not expertise or economies of scale that's at the back of this stuff, it's violence, greed and vanity. And I think that's what's going on with this company. You could envision (and there probably exists) some kind of matchmaking service that wasn't based on running numbers, telling soft lies, being an "alpha" and seeking vulnerable women...this is the outsourcing of servants because it's getting others to do shitty work because they're poor, not the use of experts doing skilled work because they're the best.
posted by Frowner at 8:27 AM on April 29, 2018 [35 favorites]


am i the only one who read this and thought 'actually, $12/h isn't bad'
honestly it's at the higher end of compensation for any job i've ever held, and i had a brief moment of wondering about this gig as a potential job opportunity

i mean, i realised i couldn't hack it once i got to the 'she seems more simple' trainer coaching line, but for a moment...

posted by halation at 8:32 AM on April 29, 2018 [10 favorites]


I know ya'll are kinda anti-violence around here, but this,

"If it weren’t for my relentless dedication to cracking the code to meeting and attracting the right person, I probably wouldn’t have met the girl I’m with now."

Can't we agree on some sort of negative feedback for anyone who refers to a grown woman as "girl"?
posted by slipthought at 8:33 AM on April 29, 2018 [18 favorites]


Social media apps make life into work; why not contract it out?
posted by thelonius at 8:35 AM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


The reality depicted in this article is insane. Ubiquitous communication networks have, in aggregate, completely broken the human brain.
posted by glonous keming at 8:50 AM on April 29, 2018 [14 favorites]


A rich older man and a rich older woman, both lifelong loners, each hire young too-cool-for-school impersonators to flirt on their behalfs on Tindr. The flirts start coaching the older couple in the ways of love, and gradually fall in love themselves. I just wrote an Adam Sandler movie.
posted by miyabo at 9:17 AM on April 29, 2018 [18 favorites]


Make one of them an AI and it's the next season-opener for Black Mirror.

Post-credits reveal:They're BOTH AIs.
posted by glonous keming at 9:20 AM on April 29, 2018 [21 favorites]


The essence of capitalism is supposed to be specialization

I always thought civilization is what made specialization possible. Y'know, the farmer grows wheat to feed 1+ person. This gives someone the chance to specialize in baking bread, which feeds more people and extends the shelf life of wheat, which then allows someone to specialize in transporting bread, which then goes all the way to the person that specializes in being a virtual-Cyrano-de-Bergerac-mashed-up-with-Frank-TJ-Mackey-for-hire on a piece of software specifically designed to provide an endless carousel of potential mates powered by handheld computers connected through a global telecommunication network.

Whoa, how did we get here!? I just wanted some tasty bread.
posted by FJT at 9:48 AM on April 29, 2018 [10 favorites]


> Post-credits reveal:They're BOTH AIs.

Yes, this is totally the next step in the race to the bottom.

Pitting the AI Dating Machines against each other to figure out which is/isn't real will turn out to be the most effective adversarial training for AI ever developed, setting them on the path to true human-like superintelligence. Then these superintelligent AI dating systems will figure out the cleanest solution to the real/not real problem is just to eliminate all the humans from the dating pool altogether.

All the remaining humans will be employed mining uranium and similar grunt work needed to run the power plants that enable the AI systems to tinder-chat with one another, drive themselves to meet each other on the dates they have set up, etc.

Eventually some of those that regard themselves as the more superintelligent and important among the AIs will specialize by hiring some lesser-regarded AIs to handle their everyday tinder chatting duties while they spend all their time on the more interesting and difficult problems like figuring out how to remove the remaining humans from the power supply chain.

And that will be the end of us.
posted by flug at 9:48 AM on April 29, 2018 [15 favorites]


tofu_crouton, I don't know whether it's the story you're thinking of, but Robert Sheckley wrote one where people use androids so they don't have to spend time on dating. The androids go off with each other.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:49 AM on April 29, 2018 [9 favorites]


It's pretty clear these apps weren't designed to make us happy or help us find love. They were built by programmers, product managers, designers, executives, and business development people. Their purpose is to keep users engaged, beat out competing apps, and of course, to make money.

What if an online dating app were run by a nonprofit, and designed by anthropologists and therapists? What if an app was actually designed to help us find love? What would that even look like?


You answered your own question here - it would get crushed by the market.
posted by Space Coyote at 9:54 AM on April 29, 2018


Make one of them an AI and it's the next season-opener for Black Mirror.

Actually, if one of them is an AI then that's the movie Her. If both are AIs, then we have Blade Runner 2049.
posted by FJT at 10:03 AM on April 29, 2018 [13 favorites]


My most frequent mistake was asking career-oriented questions, which were deemed too difficult for some women to answer. “She seems more simple,” my trainer would write in response.

oh FFS
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 10:13 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


Post-credits reveal:They're BOTH AIs.

Post Post-credits reveal, the camera pulls back to show the audience is also AIs.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:21 AM on April 29, 2018 [12 favorites]


“Alpha Males don’t apologize have to hire people to flirt for them.”
posted by klanawa at 10:26 AM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


Post-credits reveal:They're BOTH AIs.

Post Post-credits reveal, the camera pulls back to show the audience is also AIs.


And the older wealthy couple are ALSO AIs.
posted by coolxcool=rad at 10:30 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


Nothing in this article has me convinced these "professionals" have any kind of secret sauce.

Yeah, this isn't about hiring someone to do something well, this is about people having too much money, too little soul, and placing themselves above others in the little fiefdom in their mind.

This is one of the most depressing things I've read in what's been a few depressing years.
I'm starting to feel a lot of sympathy for collapsing society dystopias instead of viewing them as a warning.
posted by bongo_x at 10:34 AM on April 29, 2018 [7 favorites]


Can't we agree on some sort of negative feedback for anyone who refers to a grown woman as "girl"?

Yes! Also, this part of the article was particularly infuriating:

"My Closer manuals were written by the company’s founder, Scott Valdez, a self-taught dating expert with a background in sales. The manuals have titles like Women On Demand..."

'On Demand'?? Women are NOT objects to be ordered from a menu board. That title says everything about his misogynistic views.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 10:35 AM on April 29, 2018 [14 favorites]


“Hey. As an animal lover, I want to find out your opinion… dressing up your dog: yes or no?”

“I see you’re into yoga…. so answer this question once and for all: which is better, hot or not?”


damnnn that is maybe the most alpha shit i've ever seen, peep what real game looks like right here
posted by windbox at 10:49 AM on April 29, 2018 [15 favorites]


This is the ultimate end of "software as a service" people.

You can thank Gabe fucking Newell for pioneering it. Kind of like how you can thank Google for making the most popular mobile operating system while allowing it to be fractured and allowing mobile operators to bundle their own shitty bloatware, you know, the very problems all this was supposed to solve.

Software as service was supposed to solve the problem of security and needing updates, and making people see and feel value in the product. It has now, like everything else, simply become a means to an end.

If people pay for the service, or their ad views on the service are important, it becomes important for the company to either keep them paying for the service or staying on the service and viewing ads.

The worst is that this is really the same attitude as "is it really cost effective to cure patients?" or the fucking wanker from yesterday who wants to use data to make public housing less affordable but more desirable to developers.

In the end, its all in service to profit. At every step of the way, every idea that originally is served to help people adjust to the system, and be able to feel at peace with it. "Hey, at least this one thing doesn't make me feel like all I exist for is surplus value extraction!" Ideas like this that are supposed to somehow make people feel like they are getting something valuable, while still ensuring the profit of the business, always end up in the same way.

They end up serving profit instead of the consumer, and it twists the product into something alien and hurtful to the consumer, and to society at large.

And literally no one along the way gives one fucking damn how it affects society at large. All they care about is whatever surplus value is extracted into profit.

The idea that this isn't criminal in a scale that deserves not just complete dissolution of the companies who participate in such deranged and anti-social practices, but literal jail time with an extreme amount of psychological reconstruction to help them understand how they are selfish fucking pieces of shit who are in the long run hurting humanity because of their "we've got ours, fuck everyone else" god damned yuppie bullshit attitudes, is absurd to me. It's absurd to me we let this happen and act like it is in any way okay. Endless psychological manipulation of the population is just the American way, I guess.

In the thread yestereday with the data wanker, someone pointed out it wasn't baby boomers who were the problem, it was yuppies.

Am I the only one who thought that was the entire message of the Portlandia sketch with Jello Biafra?

We've all been assimilated. There is nothing else. The entire fucking culture is so indoctrinated into yuppie scum bullshit, to pull an idea from Zizek (that asshat), that we can't even imagine a future without capitalism. All of our art and culture is dedicated to pursuing this idea until it literally murders our entire fucking species.

And at that point? Good riddance fucking anyway. Die yuppie scum.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:55 AM on April 29, 2018 [15 favorites]


The largest problematic idea here is the tactics described are incredibly effective.
posted by aurelius at 10:57 AM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


OK, you are not prevented from making something newer and better. It will be more work than any other project has ever been, but it's possible. Any obstacle you see to doing that? Overcoming that obstacle is part of the project. Nobody's asking you to die on a battlefield either.
posted by amtho at 11:06 AM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


we can't even imagine a future without capitalism

On the one hand I feel like I've felt the language shift over the years to reflect this, on the other hand the current college age generation is a lot more engaged politically than mine was in the late 90s. Intelligently trashing capitalism online is dramatically more common today than it was 15 years ago; on sites like metafilter I think we almost entirely focus on what's going on at the other end of the spectrum because it's scary and the power of capital is peaking.

Personally I don't find online dating to be any better or worse than it was in the early days; I'm sure it helps being a straight male as the normalization of public misogyny doesn't directly impact me. I do wonder if straight women have noticed an uptick in men who have done self-work on how to relate better to women, even if only a little. I know Tinder made the whole process more superficial, but once I'm on a date it either goes well or doesn't in the same way it always has.
posted by MillMan at 11:23 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


Intelligently trashing capitalism online is dramatically more common today than it was 15 years ago

Technically, the fucking yuppie dipshit data wanker was "intelligently trashing capitalism" in the sense that he is pro-regulation when he sees it as "functional regulation." He doesn't support fundamentally changing the roots of the system as much as tweaking the knobs, hoping some new technological solution will finally make capitalism work in the wonderful, beautiful way it was always meant to work and couldn't ever fucking possibly work in reality.

I would agree with this sentiment more if a lot of people dispensing intelligent critiques of capitalism actually had more anti-capitalist thought and pre-disposition under their belt as opposed to thinking they're "the good capitalist." Yeah, the boomers thought they were "the good capitalists," too and now we fucking trash them endlessly for fucking everything up.
posted by deadaluspark at 11:29 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


i totally agree with everyone expressing horror at this. but now that we know the data-and-money apocalypse is upon us in every way, it's really on all of us to armor ourselves against it. reject all human contact that you cannot verify has good intentions; assume everyone you do not know is trying to con you or fuck you over at all times.
we are living in a target rich environment- make sure you are hard to kill.
posted by wibari at 11:57 AM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


On dating sites, no-one knows you're [pretending to be] a dog.
posted by clawsoon at 11:59 AM on April 29, 2018 [7 favorites]


Develop material. Who the fuck even thinks like that? I mean, other than the kind of KPI-driven, redpilled growth-hacking brolet who'd found an odious enterprise like this.

It's the natural outgrowth of a neoliberal consumerist paradigm where culture is “content”, celebrities are “influencers” and every activity is a subcategory of marketing.
posted by acb at 11:59 AM on April 29, 2018 [14 favorites]


Odd -- I can't count the number of times I've thought "This online dating thing is a lot of fucking work", but somehow I've never made the jump to "I should get someone to do that work for me".

So... if I get this right, there's even fewer candidates out there than what I'm actually looking at? Great. Fantastic.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:05 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


acb: It's the natural outgrowth of a neoliberal consumerist paradigm where culture is “content”, celebrities are “influencers” and every activity is a subcategory of marketing.

Saying this is going to ruin your personal brand.
posted by clawsoon at 12:06 PM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


Develop material. Who the fuck even thinks like that?

Jaques Ellul said, like 50 years ago, that everything in a technical society becomes a technique, a search for the most efficient means. "There is a technique of friendship and a technique of swimming".
posted by thelonius at 12:07 PM on April 29, 2018 [11 favorites]


reject all human contact that you cannot verify has good intentions; assume everyone you do not know is trying to con you or fuck you over at all times.
we are living in a target rich environment- make sure you are hard to kill.


The true horror is that we've been reduced to this. We can't even trust one another. Freedom of association is truly dead.

The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:08 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


Business idea: $0.10 for every Metafilter favourite on a comment you write for me.

[just want to feel loved]
posted by clawsoon at 12:10 PM on April 29, 2018 [9 favorites]


Pony up, bud. I only accept shitcoin.

EDIT: Fuck. Of course it's a thing. At least it mostly seems like a long-form joke.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:13 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


am i the only one who read this and thought 'actually, $12/h isn't bad'

Your minimum wage is too low.

(Also, that's less than my province's minimum wage, though I admit it's not a perfect comparison due to the exchange rate.)
posted by Quackles at 12:15 PM on April 29, 2018


No, no, it's not on favourites you give me, it's on comments that you write for me that get favourites.
posted by clawsoon at 12:16 PM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


am i the only one who read this and thought 'actually, $12/h isn't bad'

Your minimum wage is too low.


Washington state has the highest minimum wage in the nation at $11 an hour. The Federal minimum wage is still $7.25.

You are correct that minimum wage is too low.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:17 PM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


@clawsoon

That makes more sense. I retract my demand for remuneration.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:20 PM on April 29, 2018


The end of the story isn't both sides being an AI. It's everyone being an AI and the most successful matches having the best AIs. And then that goes on ad infinitum until we hurl ourselves into the sun.
posted by mochapickle at 12:46 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


Perhaps there is the answer to Fermi's Paradox?
posted by acb at 1:01 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


Not for the first time, and goddamn certainly not for the last time, I'm so grateful for vibrators.
posted by palomar at 1:12 PM on April 29, 2018 [10 favorites]


I'm so glad to be single and happy about it right now. Internet dating has turned into this psychologically manipulative, game-ified nightmare and hellscape.

This perspective and role reversal is just bizzare and weird to me because for so long internet dating was something only weirdos, nerds and kinksters did, and people used to look at you really funny if you said "we met on the internet."

Heck, I even have one long term and co-hab partner and we met on Hot or Not of all the damn things, and that one was really difficult to explain even to my nerdy friends.

I'm so nerdy that I pretty much wouldn't have had the dating life I've had even from a teenager if it wasn't for weird shit like BBSes, Usenet, raver email lists, MUDs and even, guh, Craigslist. And the trans/queer dating scene is definitely feeling the pain of the demise of their dating/personals section.

And I broke my stupid vibrator. I was just getting into it, damn it. I miss my Hitachi, omg.
posted by loquacious at 1:40 PM on April 29, 2018 [7 favorites]


I would take that job......If I was so broke and down and out that I had not eaten for two weeks and had not had anything to drink for forty eight hours.
posted by notreally at 2:04 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


Internet dating has turned into this psychologically manipulative, game-ified nightmare and hellscape

You just summarized the last 10 months of my "social" life. So done with that shit.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 2:13 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


reject all human contact that you cannot verify has good intentions; assume everyone you do not know is trying to con you or fuck you over at all times.

What you suggest may be sound advice for an individual, but practiced on a broad scale it is literally the end of civilization. Even the most primitive agrarian societies can't function under those conditions.

That said I can't really blame anyone who finds dating in the 21st century makes them want to watch all of civilization burn to the ground, because that's been basically my reaction.

Also, it's 20-fucking-18 and people are still pretending like "alpha male" is a word that describes anything other than "dude who's been so brainwashed by toxic masculinity he doesn't know which way is up anymore"? Ugh. Yeah, fuck it, let's burn it all down and let octopi have a shot at running the planet.
posted by mstokes650 at 2:17 PM on April 29, 2018 [26 favorites]


I went looking around at the site, and briefly considering hiring them for the hilarity of seeing what happens when polyamory is an essential feature for a match and bisexuality is a strong preference.

Looked for pricing. Pricing is not listed on the site.

Women: "After working with thousands of clients since 2009, we’ve realized that your search for the man of your dreams cannot simply be boxed up into a predefined, one-size-fits-all package."

Men: "After working with more than 1,000 clients since 2009, we've realized that men who want to go on great dates and, ultimately, meet the woman of their dreams cannot be boxed up into 2-3 predetermined packages."

HuffPo has done some research, though: "packages that range from $600 per month for 40 hours of dating assistance to $1200 per month for 80 hours of dating help."

The differences between the Women's FAQ and Men's FAQ are fascinating, and by fascinating, I mean skin-crawling. The "What We Do" page is probably the most different between the genders, and the men's site is mostly serif fonts; the women's site is mostly sans serif.

At first I thought the women's FAQ had only 5 questions, because the "claim your free 20 minute consultation" is placed after the first five - it's at the bottom of the men's page.

They claim to be successful at finding matches for 73% of women and 63% of men. The women's page mentions marriages; the men's page mentions engagements. They expect to set up men with 4 dates/month, and women 1-2 dates per week. (Yes, that's about the same. There are similar disparities in sharing the same data in other questions.)

This clause in the TOS is interesting: In the case of a chargeback or any other non-payment scenario, ViDA may suspend or close Client’s Account and revoke Client’s rights to the material used in his dating account, including but not limited to his dating profile. The dating profile becomes property of ViDA to use at it’s discretion for any purpose, including on its blog.

("His account" is used on both the men and women's TOS pages.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:44 PM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


reject all human contact that you cannot verify has good intentions

Is it really all people, or mostly men?

And even then, men shouldn't reject contact from each other, or else there's no chance of things getting better.

That said, I recognize the feeling and wanting to take a break from other people sometimes.
posted by FJT at 2:46 PM on April 29, 2018


Also looks like they're ripe for a lawsuit; eHarmony and ChristianMingle both had to open their sites to allow LGB matches. I don't see any indication that ViDA offers services to people looking for same-sex matches.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:52 PM on April 29, 2018


I've seen complaints from women that they get messages from men who completely ignore their profiles, so this "service" might average somewhat better than actual men.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:07 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's pretty clear these apps weren't designed to make us happy or help us find love.

Here's the thing. OKCupid used to be fucking great. In 2004, one of those 'worldwide top matches' it matched me up with was the man I was desperately in love with and trying to get over, which sucked in terms of getting me a new date, but was really good feedback that it was good at figuring out what I wanted.

But most men's profiles came in way under 50%. I'd have 37% matches all the time. 13% matches. So when someone came in at a 90% match, I was pretty much guaranteed to click with them. And I did! I had some amazing dates, amazing conversations. OKCupid was amazing back then. You could see someone's match percentage with their message and ignore the low ones.

At some point, they changed their secret sauce such that people weren't ever so low matched, even if those low matches were accurate. And then they changed how messages showed - you have to go to profiles or hover on names to see what the match percentage is. Because their interest is no longer in people finding good matches and getting the fuck off the site - it's in more people going on dates even if they're not actually good for each other.
posted by corb at 3:18 PM on April 29, 2018 [23 favorites]


Gay dating is better, right? Right? *sob*
posted by AFABulous at 3:28 PM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


Gay dating for me on tinder was “there’s no one near you” so in the case of needing this asshattery yes it is better and in the case of “actually getting a date” then no?
posted by Annika Cicada at 4:21 PM on April 29, 2018


Starring Tom Hanks photoshopped to look twenty years younger and Anne Hathaway with a French accent.

Colin Hanks could use the work
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:27 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


The idea that this isn't criminal in a scale that deserves not just complete dissolution of the companies who participate in such deranged and anti-social practices, but literal jail time....

Would you like to hear the stories about the "normal" online dating experiences most women have? This may be more cynical than other approaches, but being spammed by people sending one-line messages gets old very fast. Sadly, not only is that not illegal, at least when I was using OKC, it wasn't even a reportable offense.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:37 PM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


The thing I hated about my brief flirtation (ha!) with OKC, etc was how easy it was to fall into (or feel like I had) a quasi-job application template speculative opening.

"Hi [person]! Your picture caught my eye and [thing on your profile] really made me [laugh/empathise/both]. Especially the [repeat a thing that was described therein]. Please also note my relevant skills in [ratcatching, midwifery and Kirlian photography]. I know where you live! Love, A Complete Stranger (with an obviously old photo)".
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 5:02 PM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


Yeah, the problem with OKC was that the whole experience was framed as an email exchange. So it was tempting to write the message the same way I'd write an email or letter, which was way too formal a tone. Also, sometimes the profiles would have too much information, which could be kinda overwhelming.

Of course, the swipe apps have the opposite problem, where half the time people don't put anything in their descriptions at all. Seriously, what is up with that?
posted by panama joe at 5:11 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


I kept wondering what happens when one closer turns out to be actually talking to another closer.

In a current US commercial two sisters are surprised to encounter each other when one is on the phone trying to buy something from the other.

Post Post-credits reveal, the camera pulls back to show the audience is also AIs.

Isn’t this the end of The Difference Engine?

I dunno. I just spent a lovely weekend at an outdoor festival on Saturday and at a record fair today. The weather was perfect, the company was congenial, and if I didn’t find a soulmate, then I saw lots of friends, had just the right amount to drink, and came home tired and as content as possible under the circumstances. I highly recommend it.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:29 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


Always Be Closing.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:08 PM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


This makes me want to start a counter service for women that weeds out stuff like this. We'd definitely not give out phone numbers until the fourth exchange, and we'd talk about pets' deaths just to rule out people who can't manage to say something sympathetic. JFC.
posted by salvia at 7:17 PM on April 29, 2018 [21 favorites]


Cyrano de Bergerac this is not.
posted by brujita at 7:39 PM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


There's an article from a few years ago from someone who tried the service and has an interview with the founder; it's pretty clear the whole thing is designed to funnel women to guys. I suspect they only have a women's site at all because the law doesn't allow you to only cater to men. (The law in Georgia does allow you to only cater to straight people, and their TOS requires any legal action goes through Georgia law. That may not hold up, but it'd be an extra hassle to challenge it.)

*Google for women who've used the service*

Oh hey, last year apparently it was only for men. Could not find anything from a woman who said she'd used the site.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:43 PM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


Make one of them an AI and it's the next season-opener for Black Mirror.

Post-credits reveal:They're BOTH AIs.

This is literally an existing Black Mirror episode.
posted by confluency at 4:07 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's Cyber Cyrano deBergerac!
posted by jfwlucy at 5:00 AM on April 30, 2018


I was telling Mr. Slipthought about this, and his reaction was that it was akin to prostitution, except only the pimp gets paid, and the women are unaware they are the product.
posted by slipthought at 11:14 AM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


Frowner: The essence of capitalism is supposed to be specialization - it's more effective if one expert producer makes all the widgets than if we each take hours home-making our own, less-good widgets. But what it really is, is "outsourcing things that are dangerous or unpleasant or that we feel we're too good to do".

Lots of people outsource their cooking because they find it tedious or they think it's below them. This, though, is more like Paula Deen pasting her face on all of Dora Charles' hard work. It's exploitation, yes, but with a scummy layer of deception on top.
posted by clawsoon at 12:18 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


What would happen if dating platforms allowed honest matchmaking, i.e., "I'm contacting you on behalf of..."?
posted by clawsoon at 12:23 PM on April 30, 2018


What would happen if dating platforms allowed honest matchmaking, i.e., "I'm contacting you on behalf of..."?

If they really believed all that 'alpha-male' nonsense, they'd automatically do this. What's more 'alpha' than someone with 'staff'? It'd be expected.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:47 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


"Dear [MATCH NAME], I'm contacting you on behalf of [SOME ASSHOLE]. He would like to inquire as to the source of your apparent confidence."
posted by clawsoon at 1:11 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]


Woah. This makes me grateful for the life I have & perhaps tonight I won't yell at Mr. Wylie Kyoto about his dirty socks in the middle of the living room floor quite as loudly as I usually do.
posted by Wylie Kyoto at 1:57 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]


Black Mirror, sure, but don't forget the original: Donald Duck in Double Trouble. So great, so prescient, right down to that last tender scene in the Tunnel of Love. (Don't worry, Daisy might be portrayed as easily fooled at first but justice is served.)
posted by TreeRooster at 5:51 AM on May 1, 2018


Christ, Alpha males aren't even a thing in the animals we like to think have them, let alone our own species. What a crock of shit way to look at the world.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:22 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]


It's just reheated social darwinism, a pseudoscientific justification for why being a complete a-hole is the only morally correct mode of behavior.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:06 PM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


What would happen if dating platforms allowed honest matchmaking, i.e., "I'm contacting you on behalf of..."?

A friend of mine (50 yo male) got a Tinder connection from a matchmaker who has women as clients. They had a 20 minute interview then he went into their system and it moved offline. She set him up with a bunch of dates. The matchmaker would check in the next day with both parties and see if both wanted date number two. The matches were described to me a good, better than Tinder.
posted by shothotbot at 11:24 AM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


That's really similar to ancient and high-class matchmaking. "I am contacting you on behalf of my client, an aristocratic European lady...."
posted by Miko at 11:47 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


That's really similar to ancient and high-class matchmaking. "I am contacting you on behalf of my client, an aristocratic European lady...."

Yes. I've already sent the $10k and my credit card info, now just waiting for her to escape the country with the $80m dollars and we're set.
posted by bongo_x at 11:51 AM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


It's Cyber Cyrano deBergerac!

It's Cybrano deBergerac!
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:40 PM on May 2, 2018


Cyrano de Univac!
posted by moonmilk at 12:48 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


GoblinHoney: Christ, Alpha males aren't even a thing in the animals we like to think have them, let alone our own species.

Species with alpha males: Tigers. To be like alpha male tiger: Kill previous alpha male and all his children by all their mothers. Note: Mothers will fight back, like a tiger mother. You have been warned.
posted by clawsoon at 2:33 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


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