Why OK cupid’s marketing department is weeping.

I have a hate-love relationship with dating sites. There are some very nice and lovely people on them, and they seem, at least in NZ, to be the only way you meet people if you are over 30. However, wading through the hopes and dreams of others, particularly when they give off tells. (Ladies, do not put your kids on your dating page. Yes, I know they are precious, but they are civilians, and you do not know who will watch, and why they will contact you).

Most lonely hearts are heterosexual: simply because most people are heterosexual. In large towns (and by large I mean a million plus) there is often a suburb or three that is gay-friendly, and places that are swinger friendly. And if you want lots of casual sex, there are bars you can go to… just leave your dignity at the door.

The big market for dating agencies are those who, despite the “sex-positive” messages of the main culture, want more. Much more. They want to be married: one and done, despite the risks, or indeed despite seeing the consequences of a breakup in their own life. The market for these sites is a little more serious, a little more conservative, and a little more conventional than other parts of society.

Which brings us to OK Cupid. It appears that liberalism trumps marketing.

We are pleased that OkCupid’s boycott has brought tremendous awareness to the critical matter of equal rights for all partnerships.

— OkCupid (@okcupid) April 3, 2014

Now, I do not belong to OK cupid: I used to, but have never met anyone interesting there so gave up. Not even for the blog: I live in NZ and a US centric site is not appropriate: I am fairly serious about my faith. If I did belong, I would quit. Because of the hounding of Brendan Eich, driven initially by OKcupid… who forget who their main audience is.

This, then begets the standard request of dumbass, oblivious SWPL republican Americans to actually inconvenience themselves from their posh lives and boycott the evil that plots against them. But I know, I know, that’s too much to ask from the sedated class.

They will still attend Leondardo DeCaprio movies. They will still buy Starbucks coffee. They will still use Firefox. They are so stupid, ignorant and lazy they are the real reason the US will collapse.

Still, I insist on making my little commentary here for posterity so that I may die with a clean conscience 30-40 years from now. So here’s the basics:

Boycott OK Cupid if (for some reason) you have an account with them. Also: Get rid and uninstall Firefox if you’re using it and replace it with Chrome, Explorer or some other browser.

Sorting out your browser and email is simple: there are alternatives.
I am sure the marketing department of OK cupid will get the message if you all go somewhere else. There are multiple sites out
there from match.com to plenty of fish. There are also specific Christian sites. If you are a serious man or woman of God, and you have to use the internet dating scene, go for the overtly Christian ones. A buycott of OKcupid may get the message across.

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Zotero now has plugins that work with Google chrome and safari. I strongly suggest that if you are an academic you move to Zotero standalone and then use the relevant plugins. You lose a little of the functionality (but not much — it is basically as good as the Firefox version) and you can keep the pressure up on Mozilla. Zotero standalone is packaged in the AUR for arch and as ppa (for Ubuntu and other debians) or .rpm for most other versions of Linux. Please note I have not tested the debian or rpm systems: I’m running versions of Arch on everything at present.