“Meet someone who hates the same stuff”. Sounds mysterious, isn’t it? This the underlying idea of Hater – a brand new dating app. Investors promise to match its users by things they hate rather than what they like. It’s an extraordinary concept that allows you drop that idealized, perky version of yourself you’ve been putting in all your profiles and lets you show off your inner crank instead.
Founded by Brendan Alper, 29, a former Goldman Sachs employee, the app turns on its head the idea behind other dating services such as MatchAffinity, which bring people together based on what they like to do in life. Hater’s users are instead asked for a critical appraisal of a range of subjects from “hangovers”, “selfies” and “the rent being too high” to “Donald Trump”.
The app launches officially on February 8th but is now available in beta for iOS. (It will be available for Android this spring.) It offers you 3,000 hand-selected topics to weigh in on — selfies, build the wall, slow walkers and tipping less than 15% are just a few. You simply swipe down to hate, up to love, left to dislike or right to like.
A 2006 study by researchers from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas found that “discovering a shared negative attitude about a target person predicted liking for a stranger more strongly than discovering a shared positive attitude”. Simply – we like people who hate what we hate.
These academic studies have convinced Alper that people bond more quickly when they discover a shared dislike. He realized Hater would actually be a great real-life app. Alper’s team has been testing the app since December in New York and had a very positive response. They said the top three most commonly hated topics so far are the presidential election of 2016, bad sidewalk etiquette, and drain hair. As for the most loved topics: my mom, the ocean, guacamole.
Creators stress the app is meant for bugbears and petty hates rather really nasty hating. One thing they’re careful to stress is that even though Haters centers around. They’re not actually encouraging negative behavior. They’ve been carefully curating the topics themselves, and they’ve got a one-strike policy for any anyone who acts in a way you’d want to swipe down on. But Alper told The Times: “Dating is supposed to be fun. Somewhere along the line, dating apps lost sight of that. Hater wants to bring it back.” All Hater’s users let stick to this fact.
