Have you seen the ads for this app?
It’s a dating app for single parents. Touting benefits like scheduling your free time so you can coordinate with other single parents.
Sounds great, right? It’s got done thought behind it, which maybe sets it apart from other dating apps.
And then…it immediately reverts to the usual dating app dumb-fuckery.
Your kids go to bed at 8, but you don’t have to.
What the…?!?
Am I supposed to infer layers of planning and responsibility here? Because what I’m getting is, “Your kids are asleep, why don’t you head out for a little slap and tickle? You know, the hush, the bad? Go on, you’ve been a parent most of the day, minus the 8+ hours you worked, but let your hair down and get yours, now!”
Of course, the next ad set featured an ad for Upward, a Christian dating site. Oddly, I respected it more than this Stir ad. It literally said nothing offensive – just put itself out there as a resource for finding like-minded people with a built in foundation of common values.
What was Stir’s version of that? Instead of “Are you a person of faith?” it has “Are you a neglectful parent?”
Not for nothing, but I’m thinking of joining Upward and making my profile headline some sort of riff on questioning when exactly God was going to start blessing America, as the song commands – because we seem to pretty much be embracing the fucked-up-ness of our situation anymore.
Hoorah…at least people won’t be lonely or undersexed as the careen toward eternal damnation. Whatever that looks like for them.
For me, I think I’m there – and my Hell is mass market advertising geared toward separating as-hard-as-they-have-to-work-to-justify-being-overcompensated stupid Americans from their hard not-earned cash.
And do you know what? We have that coming.
atleastihaveafrigginglass 
Very valid observations on current life here. Unfortunately, too many of us are so extremely stupid that we don’t even recognize the sorry situation. Happy 2023! Naked hugs! 🙂
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It’s true. At best, we’re just too distracted by other things to dedicate any of our bandwidth to minutia like this – which keeps them from being called out. But at the same time, the myriad levels of appeal this type of phrasing and framing could have is super damaging. By all means, let’s ignore the subtext of single parent dating here: not only was your last commitment unsuccessful, the lifelong commitment you made when you became a parent is now on thin ice…so let’s help you meet your next not permanent commitment! 😖
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Cool assessment! Analysis your secret? 🙂 Naked hugs, my friend!
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I dunno…nothing else to do? 😹. Seriously, though, I’ve always been an observer. I think it comes from the feeling of being “left out” as a kid since I was a nerd. I didn’t play sports like the cool kids, but my mom always made my sibs include me when they hung out with their friends, so there I was. Sitting on the literal sidelines with no interest in sports, so I watched what the people did.
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At least, you benefitted from gaining “insight!” Very good for you! 😉
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The scariest part of that Christian thing is those are easily some of the most fucked up, kinky, rascist, sexist motherfuckers out there. Which in some respects is good. Christians, comedians, old people – the cadre of pushback. I read a post the other day, dig the like-mindedness stringing a web across the chasms – Candace Cameron Bure, Dave Chappelle and Brittany Aldean as poster children for fuck the cancel culture. It’s almost rapture inducing.
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Um, yeah…that blog post sounds pretty entertaining! Gotta love poking the narrow worldview folks, regardless of where you find them on the woke spectrum!
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Wokeness misses the point completely.
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It’s like a modern religion. A lot of inconsistent, nearly dogmatic performance…that really seems more about deflecting from one’s own opportunities by pointing out others’.
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Yeah, like free speech is a one-way street. Hey, if someone will only work on a shows that depict “traditional” marriage and requires Christmas shows to have some Christianity content, or thinks gays are funny or thinks there should be an age limit on gender change just like booze, driving, voting and cigarettes, and actually said nothing inflammatory, that’s their right as much as it is anyone’s right to disagree. If one is fond of a person’s output, they don;t have to agree with their social politics. Like Jackson told the soap opera girl, “If we had to like everyone we worked with in this town we’d never work.” Pete Townshend is an arrogant asshole and possibly a child pornographer. I’m not going to stop listening to the Who. Eddie was an alcoholic and “not a very nice man” but Van Halen saved rock n roll from an eternity of disco. Robin Williams insulted everybody on his way to becoming possibly the funniest man no longer alive.
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Very good examples. Iconic, even.
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Back in my day, I used that dating app where you went to bars and parties and assumed that smoking hot dater-wannabees were looking for people who were drunk or high.
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A classic, to be sure. This is also why older gens are better/worse than younger gens.
Better: because we got off our asses to get a little ass
Worse: because we assumed consent
Better for the win, though: we have the self awareness to acknowledge not everything about the past was the most bestest.
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I apologize, I do have a lot to say and this got long.
I agree that the subtext built into the adverts for these dating apps can be somewhat damaging and is straight up ridiculous, but I do not think that dating apps are inherently bad. I think that their purpose is a valid one: someone hasn’t met anyone doing the “normal” things, the apps help them find other local people who they otherwise probably would never see. The first meeting is only different than the old school way because you’ve already texted with the person you’re going to meet.
The issue I have with the apps is something that they can’t stop; the medium itself cannot ever fix because of its very nature. In person the first time, a man approaches me, that gut feeling is triggered and you don’t exchange contact information. The person might be dangerous, but you can get away from that location without incident. You just disappear. With the apps, it can be dangerous. People can control their insane-ness in text, not in person. You’ve already spoken to someone for a week, when you meet them and get that gut instinct, there is a danger there because they know who you are. You can’t just get away from the location without incident because they know enough about you to actually find you. That stranger in the bar doesn’t even know your first name to find you; the quasi-stranger in the restaurant already knows your first name, what you look like, probably the town/township you reside in, and probably more. You don’t want to date Jack The Ripper, so you speak to them for a while, try to do a deep-dive on the web, and weed out the ones that are a waste of time, but you increase the risk of divulging enough for them to be a problem.
Unfortunately, one of these apps has become my reality. I like the app itself, and nearly all of the people I have spoken to past the first day of messaging have been decent folks. However, there are those few. They seem sweet, empathetic, funny and kind are not. Luckily, I’ve had only two bad dates.
One was someone who asked me out and during the meal I decided he was not “it”), I suggested we go dutch rather than him paying for me. He pouted through most of the remaining part of dinner. When the check came, he “forgot” his wallet, and I paid the whole tab. I told him afterwards that I was not interested in him. I left; he stayed. I was touching my car when he appeared. He was apparently the kind that takes what he wants because he thinks he deserves it. Within seconds he had me pinned against my car and was prohibiting me from screaming. I defended myself. He ended up with a very sore groin, a bloody lip and down on one knee after his head smashed into the truck next to my car. That’s when the army of good Samaritans realized that something was off and came to my “rescue.” I sent them away because he was handled and because their faces let me know that they would demolish his life-force and leave him to the vultures. He limped away to his little car sputtering profanity at me and left.
The second incident, was a different kind of incident from the first. He was awesome over text and phone, and so we met for dinner. He was respectful and sweet during the meal and afterwards didn’t even try to kiss me (let alone force me). For two days after the date all seemed fairly normal (outside of him wanting a second date immediately), but he REALLY wanted to meet up on that third day (a Saturday). On Friday, over the course of the day, he sent me many messages about it but I did not make plans with him because I had warning bells going off in my head due to his incessant demands to get together. I figured I’d wait until he cooled down to arrange anything, if I was going to. I’m glad I didn’t for so many reasons. On Saturday my BFF lost her shit. She was over-stressed, over-tired, and was just done in general. She called me in tears, hopeless and over it. I was a friend and did what friends do: I was there for her. Then her mother called me from vacation to freak out that her daughter was freaking out. I talked mom out of flying home in a blind panic. By the time all of this was over, it had been a solid 4.5 hours. I was spent and fried. He messaged that he wanted to get together and I explained the situation and said I couldn’t. He hit the roof. Suddenly, the other side popped up. WOOOOO BOOOOOOY!!!!! I ended up at the police station to make a report because of him. First time in my life. It got ugly and fast.
So yes, the apps are a great help in finding someone you normally wouldn’t meet, but sometimes, it is better that you never met them.
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