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“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

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Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#201

Post by TeMPOraL »

SloopJon wrote: post #198
TeMPOraL wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a lot of similar feelings with Mass Effect series. In this game all the decisions you make permanently reshape the game world, which carries through the first game to second and third. Major and minor characters in the last game may be missing or doing different things based on your actions in the first game. While playing I felt the impact of my steps in even tiny details. This, + general storyline and executi…

Funny you should mention Mass Effect, because I'm playing that for the first time as well. Evidently there's a romantic sub-plot, making it even more relevant to this story. Will I get an Xbox achievement and 25 gamer points if I get lucky?

I don't know. I played PC. Also, achievements in a game like ME are stupid and ruin immersion. Turn them off if you can (on PC version I don't recall them popping up in game anyway).

As for romantic subplots - they are very good and the game will totally hijack your emotions through them.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#202

Post by ajays »

ghshephard wrote: post #191
justboxing wrote: post #189

I don't understand how their business model could scale, i.e. how they would be profitable, if indeed, they have real person(s) responding to multiple women (or users who've designated themselves as a woman :). Let say 1 "real human" is responding to 10 women at the same time, the membership income from these 10 users (not accounting for software, hardware overheads even) = $25 / month X 10 paid users = $250. If this…

You are off by a couple orders of magnitude on the number of people that a real human responds to. They get paid a few (Say, 5) cents for each text, so, to earn around $10/hour, they would need to send 200 texts/hour (which is pretty easy/trivial if you are doing this full time). Each package includes up to 100 texts/month, so, that is 1 real person per two customers/hour, or 16/day, or 320 customers/month per custom…

> they would need to send 200 texts/hour (which is pretty easy/trivial if you are doing this full time).

Context switching would take a while. You can't just reply with random phrases a-la Eliza[1] . In the article, the "boyfriend" responds to a specific question about Downton Abbey. Sure, in this instance the responder may be a fan of DA; but in the general case, it'll require more than 18 seconds (@200/hr) to just type up an intelligent, context-relevant response.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#203

Post by enjo »

discardorama wrote: post #168
briholt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just learned about this today. This is the greatest marketing concept since "million dollar homepage." My life is a failure for not having thought of this.

> My life is a failure for not having thought of this. Actually, I did think of this, many times. But my biggest bottleneck was: how will I scale up the replies? I could handle being a "boyfriend" for, say, 10 women. But any bigger, and I'd need help. I considered MTurk, but thought that quality control would be an issue. (What if the MTurk guy really starts hitting on the woman, they exchange numbers and then he sta…

Anyways: after considering all the messiness, I gave it a pass.

There is a lesson here. "Computer people" have a real aversion to simply scaling up a business by using humans to do things. Sometimes that simple answer (hire a bunch of people to do stuff) is the right answer, provided the economics of the business work.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#204

Post by Karunamon »

aetherson wrote: post #182
Karunamon wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That theory kind of breaks down when they get into specifics about military service, clothing, scars, etc. Things that a cold reader wouldn't have any access to.

Cold reading is certainly not the only kind of fake psychic scam. For example, hot reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading However, a skilled cold reader will in fact get specifics (though they'll also have bad guesses), by making further general guesses based on the information you've already confirmed for them. For example, military service is very common for men in a certain age range, who were drafted t…

I'm not going to get into the over-arching point on a board inhabited by subscribers to scientism, but don't you think the jig is is kind of up if you're told someone has a scar through their right eye and they actually didn't, or that someone had a favorite shirt that has a tear in a certain place (that both of those things didn't exist, etc).

In other words, a level of specificity that is not so easily dismissed as a scammer interpreting the information they've been given.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#205

Post by iopq »

tedks wrote: post #165
SCHiM wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is polite about lying? It seems like an easy way out instead of the right way out: just telling somebody you're not interested.

This is a very good example of male privilege. What comes to mind as the first thing that would happen as a result of this? Most women are smaller than the men that hit on them, and are constantly told they need to be vigilant against assault (this is a consequence of victim-blaming, which is wrongheaded, but nonetheless psychologically influencial). A woman saying "I'm not interested" is directly rejecting the man h…

Men get slapped or hit with bottles or glasses when they come on too strong as well. I think this is bad behavior and it's because of the person. You think it matters if a girl breaks something glass on your face that she's weaker? You're still going to have glass pieces embedded in your face.

This is not a gender issue. It's an issue of not assaulting another person.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#206

Post by LeoPanthera »

mhomde wrote: post #118

Reminds me of the autistic kid whose only friend is Siri http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-j-cameron-phd-bcbad/an...

I love that story. His friendship with Siri is more genuine than the relationship offered by this service - if one-sided.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#207

Post by scrollaway »

Roodgorf wrote: post #160
tormeh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are doing sadder things than this to keep the emotional lights on. At least it's cheaper than prostitutes. You know the saddest first-world thing I've ever heard? A prostitute doing a reddit AMA had a client once that wanted her to sing "happy birthday" for him. It was his birthday and no one else was going to.

> At least it's cheaper than prostitutes. I think there are a few more moral issues with prostitution than its market value.

You really think there are more moral issues with selling sex than selling lies?

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#208

Post by pyrocat »

LLWM wrote: post #139
BrianEatWorld wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try "Wolf Among Us" as well. It was amazing how that game tricked my normally passive personality into acting out in anger, chasing down leads for revenge instead of justice and then feeling like the monster I had become. By the end, I felt redeemed, but still vulnerable because my weaknesses had been exposed. All of that and I played the entire thing on nothing more than a tiny PS Vita screen.

You should try reading a book.

Books are great for making you feel something about fictional (or non fictional) characters, but they've got nothing on games when it comes to making you feel something about yourself.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#209

Post by ghshephard »

ajays wrote: post #202
ghshephard wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are off by a couple orders of magnitude on the number of people that a real human responds to. They get paid a few (Say, 5) cents for each text, so, to earn around $10/hour, they would need to send 200 texts/hour (which is pretty easy/trivial if you are doing this full time). Each package includes up to 100 texts/month, so, that is 1 real person per two customers/hour, or 16/day, or 320 customers/month per custom…

> they would need to send 200 texts/hour (which is pretty easy/trivial if you are doing this full time). Context switching would take a while. You can't just reply with random phrases a-la Eliza[1] . In the article, the "boyfriend" responds to a specific question about Downton Abbey. Sure, in this instance the responder may be a fan of DA; but in the general case, it'll require more than 18 seconds (@200/hr) to just…

It turns out they watched Downton Abbey, in which case it's a 15 second response. If they hadn't watched Downton Abbey - also 15 second response.

And, from reading the script - it's apparently the case that the same CSA will get scheduled in for short periods of time with the same customer - able to maintain a thread, and presumably, all the CSAs have the thread available to respond.

Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

#210

Post by pizzasynthesis »

LLWM wrote: post #139
BrianEatWorld wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try "Wolf Among Us" as well. It was amazing how that game tricked my normally passive personality into acting out in anger, chasing down leads for revenge instead of justice and then feeling like the monster I had become. By the end, I felt redeemed, but still vulnerable because my weaknesses had been exposed. All of that and I played the entire thing on nothing more than a tiny PS Vita screen.

You should try reading a book.

You should try stepping outside of your fortress of irony for two seconds.
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