emanix | Dear OKCupid, WTF?

Dear OKCupid,

We've known each other a long time. I've seen you go through a lot of changes. I remember when we met, way back when you were still The Spark, the special connection I felt between us. We had so much in common! I really felt that you were a site that cared about me as a person. I felt like who I was mattered to you. I fell for your charming wit, and the quizzes. Oh, those quizzes!
We spent many a happy hour together. So, when you became a dating site, I stuck by you. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and it paid off. After all, you still seemed to have the same values, and of course, you still had the quizzes. I even kept my profile alive, despite reaching polysaturation point a long time ago, because you helped me reach out to new members of the poly community, and to people who enjoyed my artwork. Your matching algorithms kept on linking me to people I already knew and liked - it seemed like such a good sign. You helped me make new friends, some of whom became lovers. I introduced you to everyone I knew. You were almost part of the family.

We've had a lot of happy times together, you and I, but now I just feel betrayed.

A couple of days ago you sent me this email (highlighted exactly how it appeared in my inbox):

emanix:

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.
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.

I double-checked the date. Had I managed to get my months mixed up and it was somehow April 1st again?

Apparently not.

I actually felt sick.

OKCupid, what are you telling me? I've stuck by you for so many years, yet secretly you only ever really valued me because of the way I look, and up until now, i just wasn't 'attractive' enough for you? Because I have a picture that people like to click on, I am suddenly an 'elite' member of society, and I deserve to be matched with other people who are in the same 'elite' group?

All this time, you've been secretly filtering what I got to see, based on some arbitrary measure of 'attractiveness'?

This is not a function I subscribed to, I was not asked if I wanted to be moved into this 'exclusive' group. I can see no way to disable this new level of filtering, and that makes me really rather angry. If I was actively looking for partners or friends through you I would be more than just rather angry, I would be LIVID. I'm tempted to go pointy breastplate shopping as it is.

I don't WANT 'more attractive' people in my match results. If I'm going to be matched at all, I want to be matched only on what I have in common with people. That's it.

Honestly, OKCupid, I thought you were above this sort of thing. I though you valued people, because of who they are, and not what they look like. I thought you, like me, considered moral fibre more important than muscle fibre. I thought we didn't believe in that eyes-across-a-crowded-room crap. Now suddenly I find out that you're not who I always thought you were, and I'm supposed to be glad that I've made the grade?

I'm gutted. Seriously, OKCupid, how long has this been going on? Is this a new policy? Have you been screwing around behind my back the whole time I've known you? What other elitist and exclusive crap have you been pulling that I don't know about? I feel that you've betrayed the trust in you that I had built up over years.

Most of all, I want to ask what the hell you were smoking when you added that final line: "Go ask an ugly friend". Really? You're telling me that suddenly I'm more special to you because other people have told you I'm pretty (and this based on click-thrus to my photo, which for all you know could be based on 'Hey! Look at that freak!'), and now you want me to go and choose one of my own friends to pick on, and tell them that they're not a part of the club? Just how insensitive can you get? I don't care if it was meant to be a joke, in the context of the whole betrayal thing, it just wasn't funny.

I'm not quite sure where we go from here. I may never find a dating site quite as cool, or as poly friendly as you. We have too many mutual friends for me to just leave without thinking it over. Maybe we can still be friends. I can tell you though, I will find it hard to trust you again.

Your old friend,

Emanix

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If I hadn't already left OkCupid, I would be tempted to do so after hearing this, though I might contact their administration to make sure that their system wasn't hacked.

They seem to be gradually sweeping through everyone I know with those emails. I got mine 2-3 months ago.

Exactly. I thought it was spam...

I think they're sending this to everyone gradually as I got it a couple of weeks ago and thought "hmm.. obviously just trying to encourage people to log in more often" rather than it being based on any kind of attractiveness measure.

I wouldn't leave because of this - it is a good poly friendly dating site :-)

Go ask an ugly friend and see.

Dear OK Cupid,

Fuck. You. In the ear.

Yours,
One less profile.

Well, quite. "Dear member, you know all that stuff about personality matching and such? What lulz. But good news! We have replaced that loser-friendly algorithm with one we bought off hotornot.com".

Mind you, people have much more love for facebook than for lj, so...

Even if they weren't replacing algorithms, this email really stings. I've not received this email, which means as I read it, I have to translate everything into the reverse:

Dear member,

You are ugly and here is a rock-solid fact to prove it. Because you are ugly, we shall make sure the pretty people don't have to look at you. It's not like they'd be interested any way because you're ugly and they're pretty. FYI: Pretty people only talk to you as an act of charity.

Yours,
OkCupid

I mean, I can appreciate I'm not a hottie, sure, but to have it rubbed in like that, urgh, it's like being back in high school. Fuck, at least in high school they didn't quote statistics at me to prove themselves right...

Anyways, rant over and hurt feelings directed into a terse "Why are you leaving message" and a good amount of Slipknot. Account deleted and I will have Nothing nice to say about the site whenever it comes up in conversation.

I note that this is based purely on click throughs - which frankly means that posting a picture with maggots coming out of my skull might get me rated this highly as users click out of sheer morbid curiosity. having a picture which is clicked on less often does not = less attractive.

Very true, but the last sentence certainly implies that's what they're going for. I wouldn't mind, but it doesn't even come across as a friendly insult - I hear they're quite common in American humour - it just comes across as really degrading, especially when it's coupled with all the elation of the recipient being such an attractive and wonderful person that the development team have actually gone out of their way to make an algorithm just for them.

I should probably point out that all of my anger is directed entirely at OkCupid for being such pricks and this is in no way directed at your lovely self *grin*

Totally understood, just pointing out that their statistical reasoning is flawed anyhow.

*hugs*

Y'know, this would be enough for me not to go and re-open my account (which until I read this I was considering doing). Because besides the fact that I don't hold with valuing people for their looks, OKCupid is just plain stupid for basing 'attractive' on the number of click-thrus. There ain't nuthin' wrong with your looks, hon.

I've never had an OKCupid account, but I am now somewhat tempted to go open a fake one with really morbid pictures ... perhaps a profile to match ... just to see if I can skew the system in this way. (I won't do it, but I'm still tempted!)

Hey. *squish*
You're lovely. And also very conventionally attractive.

Fwiw, I didn't get one either. (Same username on there.) I'm with Emanix here - it's based on clickthroughs, my photo is fairly unremarkable in the maggotey sense. I'm really cross at their being so rubbish (experiences with them generally haven't been great, also.) In short, *hugs* and solidarity. We could go off and form an ugly club together if you like :)

I bailed on OK Cupid a while back, after finding them to be getting steadily sleazier. But this really jumps the shark.

"Jumps the shark."?

This phrase astounds me.

Here's the history of the phrase. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark)

Neat. Thanks!

And now I'm glad I bailed too. 5 minutes after I opened my first account.

Unfarkinbelievable.

I'm tempted to go pointy breastplate shopping as it is.

Best line I've read all day. ;-D

I have a strong suspicion that there isn't really an algorithm and they won't have made any changes to how they match people. It's much easier to *say* you've done this and hope people's egos are sufficiently stroked to come to the site more often. It's still the same f'd up assumptions though.

It's an insulting email and I really don't want to take my account off suspension in light of it's attitude. Or perhaps I will, then choose to delete it altogether and list the reason!

One thing I did note before leaving, I changed my photo from a shot of my (unremarkable) face to one that shows my bum as I'm bent over working on a car. My hits per month quadrupled, however the quality of contacts nosedived into exclusively "How you doin'" type introductions from people with a 70% Enemy rating *sigh*

Well, okcupid's not sent me this mail yet, and I'm definitely more attractive than any of you lot, so it must be some sort of scam I say!

*ponders* Of course, given the bit about how "the scales recently tipped in your favour", what they are also saying is that you are just a hair's breadth away from falling back into the unattractive side of their world. They dare not spin it thus, but it's the same thing -- the nicest of the damned were just a sliver worse than the the nastiest lot in heaven!

Glad I left OK Cupid behind long ago...

mmm. nauseating. Overmadeup 10am marketing meetings determing the wording through brainstormed spidercahrts and slightly anxious hillarity. they must really love their jobs.

Dear OKCupid, WTF?

emanix:

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