So a few days ago, I wrote about the online dating world. This is Brian, a baby New Yorker (having just moved from Milwaukee, as his profile suggests), who is letting the Internet find him a date. In particular, 30 dates, in 30 dates. It’s a pretty interesting concept, and Brian has been active on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, getting recommendations of people to date, places to go and general dating suggestions. A quick glance on his Facebook page showed that he’s been getting attention from all sorts of areas; from girls who want to date him, guys who want to recommend a good spot for a first date, and even a dating portal who was interested in working out a business deal with him. Ha, fancy that!
The Dating Brian community seems to be growing exponentially as we speak. I’d be most interested to watch and see how this pans out. The Internet as a Love Catalyst? Ahoy!
Online dating isn’t a new concept. Sites like eHarmony and Match.com have been around for years, both boasting a database of about 15 million registered users.
Recently we’ve been seeing an increase in the number of “niche” dating sites. Seeking Arrangement is one of them, which helps Sugar Daddies/Mommies find their Sugar Babies. From the website:
“An Arrangement is short for “Mutually Beneficial Relationship” between two people. Such a relationship is usually between an older and wealthy individual who gives a young person expensive gifts or financial assistance in return for friendship, or intimacy.”
Recently, there’s been a lot of hype over controversial site Ashley Madison, that encourages married people to have affairs. Their tagline reads: “Life is short. Have an affair.”
The site captured a lot of attention after the ad ran, and was mentioned on highly-rated talk shows like The View and Ellen; not in any particularly good way. Remember that saying: “There’s no such thing as bad press?” It seemed to work for Ashley Madison, as they now have almost 6.5 million registered users on their site.
We all know that urbanites are essentially workaholics; to the point that there hardly ever is time for a social life. These sites provide a simple solution for these single urbanites to find the companionship that they crave, without the hassle (and potential heartache) of wining and dining and playing all those ‘silly relationship games’. There’s no more Boy Meets Girl, Boy Likes Girl, Girl Plays Hard To Get, Boy Gets Girl. These sites are offering a summarised, simplified version: Boy Meets Girl, Boy Gets Girl.
After a quick browse on some of these niche dating sites, I’ve found that the people on them are fairly straightforward about what they want and who they are looking for. There isn’t a lot of flighty romantic, “I’m looking for The One” types. Most, if not all, the people on these sites are very focused and sure of what they want. One sugar daddy on Seeking Arrangement is offering to pay up to US$5,000 for a dominatrix to ravage him on a weekly basis. Another is offering $20,000 a month for an intellectual socially-aware Stepford Wife type who he could bring to social engagements and show off to his peers. One might wonder, where exactly is that line between dating with an allowance, and escorting, or frankly put, prostitution? Seeking Arrangement has a disclaimer on their site that warns professional escorts and prostitutes from joining the network, but how closely is this monitored?
This is all very new to me and I’m surprised to find that there is an increasing number of people around me who claim to have found true love (or some version of) via the World Wide Web. Fascinating. I don’t know how open I would be to ‘putting myself out there’ amongst millions of other singles, waiting to be picked out like something on eBay, but I’m definitely keeping my options open. Looks like it’s turning out to be quite the lucrative business, and like they say: “who knows?”
Have any experience in the online dating scene? I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences!
Here’s a clip of Clay Shirky talking about content creation on the Web. He draws and interesting comparison between lolcats and Wikipedia, applauding the act of creating, even if it’s something as inane and meaningless as a lolcat.
“Doing something is different from doing nothing.”
Here’s a project I’ve been working on in recent months:
The Real World is an exploratory documentary project about the validity of virtual communities as “real communities”. This project focuses on flash-mob communities in Melbourne, Australia that are based online. It features two communities that have been very active in recent years planning and executing annual activities that are attended by hundreds, sometimes even thousands of participants.
While these communities are based online (in both cases, on Facebook), they have also managed to project physical presence in real life. The question is: does this make them a “real community” in the traditional sense?
Zombie Shuffle
The Melbourne Zombie Shuffle is an annual organised event that sees hundreds and thousands of the undead shuffling/crawling/lurching through Melbourne city streets. What began as a (relatively) small gathering of zombies in 2006, has exploded into an unstoppable force in recent years. 2010 brought about highest number of zombie participants, with a reported 4,000 – 6,000 zombies wreaking havoc throughout the city. The community exists on Facebook and all interaction leading up to each event, as well as photo and video dissemination occurs almost exclusively online. See: Melbourne Zombie Shuffle 2010
Pillow Fight
The Melbourne Pillow Fight is an extension of the annual International Pillow Fight Day, held in cities around the world like New York City, Toronto, Barcelona, Seoul, Paris and of course, Melbourne. 2010 marked the third anniversary of Melbourne Pillow Fight and saw about 400 deadly serious pillow fighters participating, fully armed with their feather pillows and flannel . This community also exists online and all communication is made via Facebook and word-of-mouth. See: Melbourne Pillow Fight 2010
Google outdoes itself by introducing biking trails on Google Maps. Where you could once only find walking and driving directions, Google maps now offers recommended biking routes. This feature is only available in the US unfortunately, but I won’t be surprised if it is introduced to the rest of the world very soon.
