The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#101

Post by djcapelis » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:19 AM UTC

ahh wrote: post #96

djcapelis wrote: post #74

It was creepy the moment it wanted to authorize so much information from Facebook. Got creepier the moment the site asked me to start involving my friends without me knowing whether or not they wanted to be involved. Got super frustrating that my ability to even see how this site worked required me to drag my friends into this mess without their consent. And from what I can see, there's no way for me to specify which…

So...90% of people, give or take, are straight. Online dating is a clusterfuck of failure for straight people (ask anyone who's tried it, or the OP.) Online dating mostly works for gays and lesbians (you say so, I've seen the same from others.) And this guy is an idiot for trying to cater to the straight dating market? Precisely why?

> So...90% of people, give or take, are straight.

And a lot of those straight people may one day get involved with, have been involved with or may find themselves interested in someone who isn't straight. Many of whom are bi (or queer or whatever label) and most of whom do very very much care about being on a site that doesn't just serve straight people since they're open to dating both straight and non-straight folks.

So if a site is inclusive, the straight dating pool should be larger too. Even if you decide the only thing you care about is straight people.

> Online dating is a clusterfuck of failure for straight people (ask anyone who's tried it, or the OP.)

Funny enough, I can just ask myself, since I did use online dating to date plenty of straight people before coming to my senses.

Also, I have a fair number of straight friends, a lot of them appreciate OKC a lot and use it regularly with good results.

The people I hear complaining about it most often are usually people who are just angry about the fact that they can't get dates... online or offline. It turns out there's a lot of frustrated straight people out there, but there's also just a lot of straight people out there. Assuming that online dating works magically well for gay/lesbian folks but doesn't for straight people seems like a really large leap to make and also seems really untrue from what I've heard. (I've known LGBT folks who haven't found online dating to be that great and I should also note that in general offline dating can be harder for LGBT folks (especially in some parts of the world) than for straight folks and online dating looks pretty good by comparison.)

> And this guy is an idiot for trying to cater to the straight dating market? Precisely why?

Well first off, I never actually said that. What I did say was that the way the site felt it felt like it was designed with a pretty narrow frame of how dating worked and that narrow frame was likely going to be a problem in a bunch of ways. For me, it doesn't work at all for a bunch of reasons. For others, it'll likely be something else.

Look, if he was making a conscious design choice to only care about straight people, that's a thing you could do in a defensible way and you could probably design something pretty cool. But it didn't feel like a conscious decision, it felt like a decision that was made because someone didn't think through their problem well enough to even realize the things they didn't think about. And that's the real problem.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#102

Post by wtvanhest » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:22 AM UTC

djcapelis wrote: post #93

SilentStump wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thought process is that if you're going to be a wing person for your friend, you're going to know if they're interested in women or men. I the same idea of whether or not you would invite a friend that's in a relationships. I think the point is very valid though.

I mean the whole idea relying (solely?) on friends to find me dates thing already seems pretty bizarre, but even if you put that aside, the site has a browse functionality for a reason and presumably the intention of it existing is for people to be able to browse... I mean I love my friends and when opportunities to set people up in good ways come along, I go ahead and make them happen... and I don't mind if a friend…

It seems like a good possible solution for some people and it has a natural virility to it that shouldn't be underestimated. (Once your friends do it for you, they tell their other friends they did it for you and it should grow).

I get that you are not straight and feel like services should always consider you, but less than 20%, (and by most estimates 10%) of the population is not straight. Spending 90% of your time to go after that market seems like a waste when it will be difficult enough to get the straight market. I'm sure the OP will grow in to gay/lesbian market if they have success in the straight market, you can be patient and relax until then.

Just a few thoughts:

But the whole feeling of a service where friends are setting up friends without having a dialogue about consent or you know, whether I'm even at all interested in them being involved in my dating life (god knows I have plenty of friends where I'm not interested in their suggestions) is just not really okay.

The service doesn't put a gun to your head and make you go on the date.

And did I mention creepy? I did. But I should say it again for emphasis, because this doesn't feel like friends helping friends, it's just creepy.

I like when people use the word "creepy" because it doesn't actually mean anything. It is simply a description they use when they don't like something. "That girl/guy is creepy" means, they don't like them. "that social service is creepy", well you get it.

I think adding a social aspect to dating is a great idea, but it's something that has to be done carefully and IMO this implementation seems radically bad.

Why does it have to be done carefully? Taking a bold approach might work here, and I applaud the OP for taking it. If it is over the top, it won't work.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#103

Post by mamoswined » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:23 AM UTC

dougk16 wrote: post #41

One theory on why the author might be having a little trouble with OkCupid comes down to this sentence: "Unless your parents are Jewish and they threaten to disown you for not having a Jewish boyfriend...yea, you may not want to message me in that case." I mean, I laughed, it's a funny profile, but ultimately it implies bitterness over your last relationship, which, in my experience, is a turn off for both sexes. Don…

OKCupid actually has a question that you could use to filter out non-Jewish people or people who want to date only Jewish people. But unfortunately it sounds like she decided it mattered only when the relationship was underway.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#104

Post by djcapelis » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:24 AM UTC

jmtame wrote: post #89

djcapelis wrote: post #74

It was creepy the moment it wanted to authorize so much information from Facebook. Got creepier the moment the site asked me to start involving my friends without me knowing whether or not they wanted to be involved. Got super frustrating that my ability to even see how this site worked required me to drag my friends into this mess without their consent. And from what I can see, there's no way for me to specify which…

Got super frustrating that my ability to even see how this site worked required me to drag my friends into this mess without their consent. I'm going to add some explanations to the home page, I definitely agree with you here. It's a lot of trust to let someone access your Facebook, and we are not trying to abuse that trust. Your friend only finds out if someone is interested in talking to them, and if they want to d…

Sure. I think your social thing is going to need a lot of work to feel comfortable to people though, but I'd be happy to talk about it when I have time to spare.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#105

Post by SilentStump » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:25 AM UTC

itistoday2 wrote: post #98

SilentStump wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like use a generality than lie. I know, while I read some profiles, I don't read any until I am physically attracted to the person.

If he knew he was making a generality (and, for his sake, I hope so), and yet still made that statement, then that's lying (at least, using boolean, and not fuzzy logic) because his statement was absolute and unqualified. Absolute, unqualified statements are not generalities. "People are dumb" (absolute, unqualified) vs "Most people are dumb" (absolute, qualified) vs "Most people I've met are dumb" (relative, qualifi…

You do make a good argument. When I read blog posts and they make a statement like that I tend to just read it as "Most X do Y" instead of "All X do Y." It's like the word literally. Everyone that uses the word literally use it instead of figuratively, even though they mean the latter (jokes I make are bad).

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#106

Post by jes5199 » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:28 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #71

jes5199 wrote: post #47

This post is very, very strange.

I didn't find it strange; the fact that you do is surprising, and therefore potentially interesting. Would you care to elaborate?

It covers a lot of subject matter, and all of it seems to be from ways of interacting with the world that are alien to me. Public complaining about your ex? Pick up artistry? Inteviewing cliques of women in bars? Bizzare charactures of the idea of romance? Weird superiority/inferiority posturing? Trying to reduce a first impression to one-liners?

It feels more like cable television than real life.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#107

Post by ultrasaurus » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:30 AM UTC

dougk16 wrote: post #41

One theory on why the author might be having a little trouble with OkCupid comes down to this sentence: "Unless your parents are Jewish and they threaten to disown you for not having a Jewish boyfriend...yea, you may not want to message me in that case." I mean, I laughed, it's a funny profile, but ultimately it implies bitterness over your last relationship, which, in my experience, is a turn off for both sexes. Don…

It's at least reflective of his low-filter personality. I'm more surprised that his friend in the linked Grouper article posts a picture and labels one girl as the grenade.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#108

Post by jmtame » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:33 AM UTC

djcapelis wrote: post #104

jmtame wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got super frustrating that my ability to even see how this site worked required me to drag my friends into this mess without their consent. I'm going to add some explanations to the home page, I definitely agree with you here. It's a lot of trust to let someone access your Facebook, and we are not trying to abuse that trust. Your friend only finds out if someone is interested in talking to them, and if they want to d…

Sure. I think your social thing is going to need a lot of work to feel comfortable to people though, but I'd be happy to talk about it when I have time to spare.

Just sent an e-mail, no need to reply. I'll reach out again after we've built this.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#109

Post by mlent » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:33 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #91

jmtame wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women will still be over messaged and men are still under messaged. People still ignore profiles in favor of photos - what does this change? Aren't you more interested in reading what somebody's friend has to say about them rather than what they're saying about themselves? Also, we have Facebook accounts (100+ friends required to join) which are not easy to replicate and we can rate limit. On OkCupid, the worst that…

Just as a point of reference, I have 28 facebook friends, and I've been thinking about trimming that number down... but I'm pretty sure I exist.

Yeah, I think there should perhaps also be a 'time' factor. Because I know plenty of people who've deleted facebook altogether, returned, and are in the same boat.

Re: The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell

#110

Post by djcapelis » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 1:40 AM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #102

djcapelis wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the whole idea relying (solely?) on friends to find me dates thing already seems pretty bizarre, but even if you put that aside, the site has a browse functionality for a reason and presumably the intention of it existing is for people to be able to browse... I mean I love my friends and when opportunities to set people up in good ways come along, I go ahead and make them happen... and I don't mind if a friend…

It seems like a good possible solution for some people and it has a natural virility to it that shouldn't be underestimated. (Once your friends do it for you, they tell their other friends they did it for you and it should grow). I get that you are not straight and feel like services should always consider you, but less than 20%, (and by most estimates 10%) of the population is not straight. Spending 90% of your time…

I'm pretty sure if you don't think the word creepy has meaning attached to it and don't understand how it's applied, you're very unlikely to be able to build or design a dating site that people (particularly women) are going to find comfortable and will want to use, straight or otherwise.