love is in the Air(Pods)
“alexa, find bae”
You are cordially invited to this week’s brew of High Tea, your dispatch of 🔥 internet culture served piping hot. This week: Amazon goes dating, MeetCute gets its happy ending, and we play our WNRS cards right.
Drink up. 🐸☕️
what we’ve been sipping on
Sitting in a swelteringly hot Williamsburg bar, with a rambunctious bunch of 20 year olds you might mistake it to be any other Saturday night in NYC, but this night was different; it hit different. These people were not here to get all hot and heavy [at least not at first], but rather to attend one of DateMyFriend.ppt’s notorious match-making events: a live showcase where locals pitch their single friend to the crowd with a Powerpoint deck. Yes, that’s right, ppt.
Is this a sign that we all have swipe-right fatigue?
With 45% of current or recent users of dating sites or apps saying that using these platforms makes them feel frustrated, or worse, women reporting high levels of sexual harassment, it’s little wonder that we’re starting to see the democratization and experimentation of our dating scene into the 2020s.
Let’s run through our favorites in the lead up to the most “romantic” day of the year:
amazon dating: the collab we never knew we needed
Dominating our Twitter feeds this week was the incredible Amazon Dating, which, as you might have guessed already, is not Bezos affiliated but nevertheless exudes the same look and feel as the notorious Prime money spinner. The brainchild of director and conceptual artist Ani Anicopan and music producer and Suzy Shinn, Amazon Dating was born out of a desire to move beyond the tried and tested (pls also read tired and tested) dating app routes, in favor of something as accessible and crowd-sourced as Amazon but, in its parody, inherently fun.
Partnering with animation studio Thinko to bring the idea to life, Ani and Suzi started off by just populating their pseudo-amazon affiliate with pals but have since received over 10,000 requests from people wishing to be added to that platform. Amazon Dating proves you *can* put a price on love - only if it comes with free delivery 🐸☕️
Apply fast before they get their cease and desist!
meet cute: proving romance really isn’t dead
Who doesn’t love a romcom? With more than half of Spotify’s monthly users aged 12-24 reporting being podcast listeners, enter Meet Cute: a producer and distributor of original romantic comedies in podcast form that focus on “providing the happiness and hope that have become synonymous with the timeless genre.”
With each episode its own story at just 15 mins long —perfect for our TikTok fried attention spans— we’re excited to dive into these playful skits. Oh, and did we mention CEO Naomi Shah has just raised $3M to fund the writing, editing and production of even more deliciously feel-good, Meet Cute content? Nobody puts baby in the corner.
we’re not really strangers: the new way to connect
We’re not really strangers is official. The kind of official that gets you a seat [and a collaboration] at the Red Table. This new social phenomenon is our wild card, literally. With over 1.4M followers on Instagram, WNRS is a card game with a difference: it wants to inspire deeper and more meaningful connections among friends, family and loved ones. Founder Koreen describes the game as a way to: “create new relationships and even deepen existing ones...moving the conversation from first impressions to matters that lie far beneath the surface.” This sentiment permeates through to Instagram which takes on the role as a pseudo-best friend and life coach, helping its followers navigate the intricacies and complexities of life.
WNRS has recently teamed up with Bumble to offer a more nuanced and connected way to date. Expansion packs such as Bumble Date, Bumble BFF and Bumble Bizz are all free to download to go beyond the current connectivity offerings in-app. Inter-connectedness? It’s en vogue.
In a world of swipe-rights, we think we’ll start to see even more of these novel experiences appear, that not only increase and instigate connectedness, but that are inherently and unashamedly fun. Just how romance was always meant to be, amirite Tinder?
kettle’s on: ones to watch
TikTok verified a fake Kendall Jenner. Last week the world watched with excitement as Kendall Jenner [@kendalljenner] made her official debut on TikTok — or so we thought. Amassing nearly 500,000 followers in < 24 hours and receiving the official verification stamp from TikTok HQ, it wasn’t long before the platform smelled a rat and hastily removed the handle. How this verification even went through w/o proper research has us shook.
Jerry makes UTA. Arguably the biggest personality on the team (icymi we wrote about the Navarro Dawgs here), this week Cheer’s Jerry signs with influencer management company Digital Brand Architects and its parent company UTA, joining the ranks of the D’Amelio fam. This is big. And we’re sure Monica couldn’t be more proud.
I’ll be there in a Quibi. An ad at the Superbowl? You must mean business. Launching in 3 months, the mobile-only, short-form video streaming service invested millions in a commercial to explain exactly what it does to the masses. Sadly, we’re left confused. A bank heist ‘gone wrong’ meant a getaway driver opted to watch a ‘Quibi’ instead of meeting his bank robber friends. It falls flat to say the least. We await the official launch with baited breath.
Ok you made it, now you can go back to ur bae...or ur Ben and Jerrys
ttyl,