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| He's a winner, I can feel it |
Jake Elliot Roren embraces the prevailing attitude of sharing more. With his website “OkCupidLetters.com” he takes this to a logical place: online dating. Here, his vulnerable impulses take hold. You thought Carles from Hipster Runoff was “getting vulnerable with you”? Forget that well-adjusted put-on artist, this guy wears his heart on his sleeve; he might have been the original prototype for the Emo kid. Maybe that should be his next tattoo. Maybe it already is.
The site consists exclusively of messages that he sent to girls on OKCUPID and never received responses. Each message offers the reader a look into the dark, twisted and admittedly alternative soul. He’s 36 now, so he’s honed this vulnerability to an absolute art form.
Now this would be unfair if he just showed us their responses, and stated “Wow, how could they not go for that.” Instead, he never received one, allowing the reader to make their own judgment on his wise or faltering attempts at online flirtation. Obviously his goal is to show off how shallow and superficial online dating is, but I don’t necessarily take his cynical point of view. Dating over the internet has just begun and it needs some time one can discount it.
Having said that, OKCUPID does have a certain reputation for how it treats users. One of its famous messages was sent to the most attractive users on its site. Here I have the actual wording of that very post:
How can we say this with confidence? We’ve tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people’s reactions to you in QuickMatch and Quiver.
Your new elite status comes with one important privilege: You will now see more attractive people in your match results.
This new status won’t affect your actual match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match’s answers. But the people we recommend will be more attractive. Also! You’ll be shown to more attractive people in their match results.
Suddenly, the world is your oyster. Login now and reap the rewards. And, no, we didn’t just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see.
Now, oddly Jake hasn’t yet written about this (yet). His site does appear to be updated fairly infrequently. But any dating site that sends such things to its users plays a cruel game, akin to Lacrosse, easily one of the meanest games ever. Those users who failed to receive this message, I’m sorry but random dating site algorithms thought you were unattractive.
His modus operandi appears to be as a twee sort of adult. The one casually name-dropping bands and having more energy than he knows what to do with, hence all those messages he sent out. If you saw this guy in any record store, anywhere, he’d be the guy you’d tell what band you liked and he’d spit out an answer for what you’d like. And he’d be right; you’d adore him for it. He is a human, living breathing version of your last.fm account.
The online world isn’t as nice. His site seems to acknowledge this, though perhaps being rejected isn’t always a bad thing. I’ve known friends who kept job rejection letters and later looked at them and laughed. Maybe his site does a little of that too. When he’s met that certain someone and together they can bask in the glow of their computer monitor, reading and laughing at each post. Seeing his explanation for why he sent each and every message. How each analysis brought him a little closer to emotional nirvana? Perhaps they might even share some of that wisdom with their first child, Galaxie 500’s album “This is Our Music”. Then their next child “Slanted and Enchanted” can also appreciate his father’s bizarre sense of humor.
But I digress. I enjoy the website a lot. I want Jake to continue with it, with all his trials and tribulations on the alternative dating site OKCUPID. His evisceration of the Ice Breaker feature is great, sometimes it just gives you random things you both like, such as “Carpets”.
Live free and prosper Crazy Pablo.