where everyone has eight-pack abs and ridiculous jaw lines
June 27, 2018 12:08 PM   Subscribe

“It’s the Soho House of dating apps" (SLNYT) “They have the really good-looking guys, the athletes, the actors, the guys that have like 500 followers on Instagram but got accepted because they’re a D.J.”

"The app — which is only available on Apple devices, naturally — gathered buzz among Hollywood and media insiders, who called it “Illuminati Tinder” and begged to be invited. One desperate applicant offered $10,000 in cash for a Raya account. Others put together elaborate résumés, complete with press clips and glowing testimonials."
posted by devrim (36 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
So this is just a classist dating app?
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:16 PM on June 27, 2018 [9 favorites]




lol metafilter gets a mention in the article

(Raya uses full-screen slide shows set to music, in lieu of static profile photos.)

barf
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:20 PM on June 27, 2018 [9 favorites]


I wouldn't join any dating app that would have me as a member.

Well, that's the jealousy talking -- really, I know I'm not attractive enough to get past the gatekeeper, as was recently reinforced by my last Match date who gave me the full body scan and sneered, and I was thinking "You're an actress, maybe you can act not disappointed?"

Not that I'm bitter.

OK, I'm bitter. Can I be done with online dating now? Raya, I don't need another font of negative reinforcement of my own self-worth, thanks. I'm good.

posted by Capt. Renault at 12:23 PM on June 27, 2018 [11 favorites]


I might pay money for a dating app that would somehow keep out anybody who would either want or possibly be able to get onto this. A dating app that only let conventionally-unattractive weirdos join would be 100% my cup of tea although the pool in my area for my particular interests is small enough as it is.
posted by Sequence at 12:35 PM on June 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


lol metafilter gets a mention in the article

"The nerds had their subreddits and Metafilter threads, the artists had their zines and Tumblrs, the 9/11 truthers had their email lists and subway pamphlets."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:42 PM on June 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


lol metafilter gets a mention in the article

Weird:
I spent several weeks glued to Raya, looking for as many familiar faces as possible. And while the experience created a distinct urge to go to the gym and start moisturizing, it didn’t exactly make me long for my single days.

But, oddly, it did make me nostalgic for an earlier, more Balkanized era of communication.

It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time in which niche interest groups were exclusive and self-moderating. The nerds had their subreddits and Metafilter threads, the artists had their zines and Tumblrs, the 9/11 truthers had their email lists and subway pamphlets.

Then social media companies came along, broke up the clubs and forced all the gamers and sports fans and Instant Pot moms and neo-Nazis onto the same three apps, then acted surprised when nobody got along.
Is the author a MeFite or a casual lurker, because as much as I love MetaFilter, I didn't think it was well known enough to be classified with Reddit, even subreddits. (Then again, he wrote that "niche interest groups were exclusive and self-moderating," which may have been somewhat true in the first years of MetaFilter, but that hasn't been true for a while, unless you're saying that because the mods are members, and other members can flag comments, that this is a self-moderating site, but I'm now lost in the plates of beans and weeds.)

Back to the topic: Aren't there a ton of self-selecting dating sites? There's Farmers Only, and "Ayn Rand Dating" on The Atlasphere, where user profiles are instantly visible and don't require you to sign in, which seems like a generally bad idea, but I digress again.

Maybe the author's concern is that, like others in this thread, he hasn't found the platform that matches his niche(s).
posted by filthy light thief at 12:44 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


Ayn Rand dating, bless, I thought that was just sex tourism and mail order brides...
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:52 PM on June 27, 2018 [13 favorites]


“He just looks rad.”

Oh yeah. No way that goes wrong.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:55 PM on June 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Artists and musicians didn’t necessarily want to be on a platform that lumped them in with bankers and lawyers

That must have been simply awful for them
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:57 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


where everyone has eight-pack abs

Amateurs! I have pony-keg abs!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:05 PM on June 27, 2018 [23 favorites]


The Sudden Appearance of Hope was not supposed to be aspirational!
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:06 PM on June 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


So what you are saying is that a member exclusive Metafilter dating app could be the answer to the sites cash flow challenges?
.
.
.
.
.
Yes, I'm kidding.
posted by COD at 1:25 PM on June 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


This article is horseshit.

"Mr. Gendelman would not share financial information but said that he expects Raya to become profitable this year."

And you just believed him? Great fucking work Hildy Johnson.

"Ultimately, though, Mr. Gendelman is in the rare position of running a social network that doesn’t need to be huge to succeed."

What the actual fuck are you talking about? It's not even profitable according to its own founder, and the only people on it are rich dicklords who can't bear the effort of swiping left on poor people themselves. What, in the name of all God's sweet angels, is the metric by which you pronounce this a "success"? Number of vapid column inches in the NYT?
posted by howfar at 1:59 PM on June 27, 2018 [21 favorites]


I'd like people who think of themselves as beautiful people to stick together as much as they can since that will reduce the chances I'll be stuck having to deal with them.
posted by jamjam at 2:21 PM on June 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


So what you are saying is that a member exclusive Metafilter dating app could be the answer to the sites cash flow challenges

How sure are you that Metafilter isn’t a dating app?
posted by corb at 2:37 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


posted by corb: How sure are you that Metafilter isn’t a dating app?

I mean, there have been a fair number of marriages and babies...
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:54 PM on June 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Honestly, I’ve actually been a date with one of the people mentioned in the article and he was exactly as you’d expect anyone involved with a project like this to be: self-obsessed, social climby, really into status and thinness. Let all these people self-select out of the regular dating pool and isolate themselves via Raya. The rest of us will benefit from their absence. I love this!
posted by Yoko Ono's Advice Column at 3:01 PM on June 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


Beer doesn't even come in 8-packs. The only thing I can think of that comes in 8-packs is hotdog rolls.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:23 PM on June 27, 2018 [12 favorites]


sorry.... metafilter: rich dicklords who can't bear the effort of swiping left on poor people themselves.
posted by lalochezia at 3:29 PM on June 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I mean a lot of the single artists and musicians I know are TRYING to meet bankers and lawyers so
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 3:43 PM on June 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


The heart of Raya is its screening process, which is overseen by a secret committee of about 500 trusted members who vote on every application.
Wikipedia administrators, but for dating?
posted by clawsoon at 3:56 PM on June 27, 2018 [3 favorites]



omg, I thought y'all were joking when you said it mentioned Metafilter....
posted by fizzix at 4:22 PM on June 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


A dating app that only let conventionally-unattractive weirdos join would be 100% my cup of tea although the pool in my area for my particular interests is small enough as it is.

I'll say it again: MetaDate. All the way over there on the right, next to MetaTalk.

I mean, we're looking for revenue streams, right?
posted by ryanshepard at 6:11 PM on June 27, 2018 [9 favorites]


Beer doesn't even come in 8-packs.

There was like a month around 2003 when my friend we called "Fun-Time-Bobby" was obsessed with these 8-packs of Miller Genuine Draft bottles of beer. The bottles were smaller than normal too.

Wal-Mart still has them on their website!

Your comment just triggered such an oddly vivid memory for me.

Carry on.
posted by VTX at 6:54 PM on June 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


Is MetaDate an online dating service for passionate aficionados of the science, sociology, and metaphysics of online dating?
posted by runcifex at 2:06 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Is MetaDate an online dating service for passionate aficionados of the science, sociology, and metaphysics of online dating?

"The world's first dating app only for conventionally-unattractive weirdos!"

But, I mean, we'd obviously beanplate the whole thing, so yes.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:52 AM on June 28, 2018


MetaDate is where people argue about arcane issues in calendrical systems.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:55 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Then social media companies came along, broke up the clubs and forced all the gamers and sports fans and Instant Pot moms and neo-Nazis onto the same three apps, then acted surprised when nobody got along.

Not quite. Facebook at large is like that, but if you’re doing it right, you’re keeping your Instant Pot mom stuff in the appropriate closed group with other Instant Pot moms. And from there, you may get invited to the secret Instant Pot Moms Dating group for your city, where you can meet like-minded moms and covertly hook up while the kids are in afterschool and the butter chicken’s cooking. This is known as the “quick release” method.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:15 AM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


Seriously though this app sounds like the premise for a romantic comedy: ordinary techbro is obsessed with a model, so he creates a hyper-exclusive dating app in hopes of bringing her to him. He encounters many wacky people and scenarios along the way and ultimately learns absolutely nothing.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:18 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


I met my wife on MetaDate.

I didn't even know she liked Piña Coladas.
posted by DigDoug at 6:22 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


How sure are you that Metafilter isn’t a dating app?

I'm single, let's mingle . . . over a plate of beans.
posted by thivaia at 8:30 AM on June 28, 2018


I'm working on an exclusive app for the discerning pervert. It's Raya meets Fetlife. I'm calling it Spankr. It's a follow-up to my Gen X dating app where you just meet people who want to complain about the youngs - Complainr.
posted by misterpatrick at 11:18 AM on June 28, 2018


MetaDate

DateMe, surely.
posted by Flannery Culp at 5:59 PM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


Wait, this is how I find out that I’m a nerd?!
posted by Jubey at 1:57 AM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


ryanshepard: I'll say it again: MetaDate. All the way over there on the right, next to MetaTalk. I mean, we're looking for revenue streams, right?

This has short-term thinking written all over it. What happens when happy relationships result and people are no longer lonely enough to turn to Metafilter for companionship? And worse, what if unhappy relationships result and people are no longer able to post their relationship woes to AskMe because their partner will be there in the thread telling them they're wrong?

It seems like a good idea at first, but...
posted by clawsoon at 7:27 AM on June 29, 2018


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