Dating apps are such a great idea, in theory.
The trouble is that in practice, they usually just end up being a total gross-fest of narcissism and shallow thirsting.
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These problems might start as slightly disheartening, but they can grow into a much more insidious dating culture.
Despite their purpose being to foster connections between people, dating apps are actually pretty terrible at it.
It’s so easy to take one look at someone’s profile and dismiss them. It’s easy to pick people up and drop them at a moment’s notice.
Dating apps struggle to help people form meaningful connections that would help people view others as real people.
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By GlobalDataBut a new dating app has come along with a unique way of incentivising interaction.
Unlike Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, and all the rest, Taffy won’t let you see who you’re talking to.
The app forces uses to chat to one another before it reveals their profiles to each other. The idea is that you form a judgement on the person, not their picture.
Each profile shows a blurred out picture and a general headline.
That way you get a sense of whether the person is your type from the headline, and a hint at general features such as skin and hair colour. As you talk, their profile gradually becomes less blurry.
After about ten messages back and forth, you’ll be able to see each other.
However, what makes the app really clever is that it has an algorithm to measure the quality of your conversation.
If you’re having a lengthy and in-depth chat from the off, you’ll see them faster than if you just exchange generic pleasantries.
The app also claims to be a ‘friendship app’ as well as a dating one. You can have several different profiles tied to your main one. So if you want to put out one picture and headline for your dating profile, you can have a separate one for meeting friends.
There’s even an option for people just looking for hook-ups! Finally you won’t have to worry about wasting your time with someone looking for something different to you.
John Schenk, the app’s founder, told Mashable that his app’s goal is “to put personality on a level playing field with physical appearances.” To be fair, it sounds like a decent way of getting around the shallowness that Tinder is associated with.
On the other hand, part of the attraction of dating apps is that they make finding potential matches easy.
It might prove a waste of time to talk to someone only to learn you’re not attracted to one another.
Still, more variety on the market can hardly be a bad thing! Different strokes for different folks, eh?
Taffy is available on iOS now with an Android option apparently coming soon.
