A Dating App Prank Gone Right: An April Fool’s Love Story

4:16PM Mar 25, 2022

Speakers:

Keywords:

prank

people

april fool

joke

april fool's prank

alexa

dating app

match

shared

hear

love

april fool's

day

cryptocurrency

april

read

martial art

april fool's day

feel

happen

It's April 1, and we are not kidding around today, we've got plenty of love to share and April Fool's Day matchmaking pranks that will make you wonder if you can be tricked into love after all. I'm Sarah Wendell.

I'm Alicia Rai Welcome to lovestruck daily where we bring our love story to your years every single day.

I'm in love with love with you. Now, before we get started with our episode, I have a true story a true compliment and review no foolin from Instagram, and I just want to share with everyone because it makes me so happy. So on Instagram, what a girl reads which, by the way, fabulous name, says of our episode with Helen Juan on the kiss quotient and love and meeting her husband. What a girl read said this. lovestruck daily was so cute. I love Helen Hong story about how she met her husband. Totally random question, but I wonder what form of martial arts did she take? What a girl reads I am very excited to tell you that we found out what martial art Helen Wong was taking. And it was kendo. And if you can hear my cat, he very much supports the idea of taking some kendo. So that is the martial art. But thank you what a girl reads. You're fabulous. I love that. It's so nice when people say nice things about us

and is really nice. I like it. But Happy

April Fool's Day. Fine. All right. I have strong positive feelings about April Fool's

and strong negative feelings about April.

Alright, so tell me what you don't like about it.

I I'm very naive. Like, I'm very gullible. Okay, I get it. I believe everything. And so I feel like this stays like a personal attack on me. Because I very, like your your tricks are fine, because I'm like, I know they're calm. You know, I know. It's kind of website. I know the websites coming. I know what's gonna happen. But like, I I just, I feel like I believe everything anybody tells me for the most part. So I'm always like, shocked when they're like, surprise and like, I hated that. Like, I can tell you and I and this is very hard living with somebody who like chi loves not necessarily pranks, but he likes to get me like, can I tell you the first thing he said when he like, proposed on on a bow? Like I opened and he's like, You didn't see that coming? Did you? Did you see it coming? Did you know it was kind of like No, I didn't. Yeah, I'm fine. You got me. Like, it's like, that's his whole mindset. And it's so for example, like and they're always good natured pranks. Like they're silly. Like, one time he was we were in bed and he was like putting the TV on. And I'm always amazed at what Alexa can do. Because I never had an Alexa. So Alexa, like is the first time I was introduced to Alexa was with him. And he was like, Alexa turn on the TV, which it can do. And then he's like, Alexa open Netflix and like opened it and things like Alexa, navigate to this, like window. And I was like, that's so cool that Alexa can do all that. I have the remote. And I'm joking.

Okay, first of all, I think you and I, you and I need to prank him. I think we do. We do. So set up an Alexa at your wedding. Like but like behind the efficient. Whoever's marrying you. Okay, and then we can set up audio and be like, Alexa, will you marry us? Kai? Do you accept Alicia and be like, What the hell?

That's actually not a bad idea. But like, I hate April Fool's.

See, I love April Fool's. So okay, smart pitches began on January 31 2005. So on April 1, we had just started the site. It was brand new. It was a blog about romance novels. We had a small audience growing and we changed the whole front of the site to smart bitches who love fluffy bunnies. And we reviewed pictures of rabbits. Completely random and people were like, What is oh, it's April Fool's. Ever since then, every April Fool's we have a basically a dummy front of the site. And I have done so many different April Fools Day pranks. One time we got bought by Amazon. I remember that one time I did a wristwatch wearable that would let you stop time so you could read more. We've done subscription boxes in 2020 because the lockdowns had just happened we did weight of the world blankets where we remove the weight of the world from you so you can read more. This year it is April 1 When this episode airs so I can tell you that we are launching our own cryptocurrency Bitcoin, because I don't know if you've noticed the language of cryptocurrency is hilarious and dense and so sick. And I yeah, I can make jokes about hot wallets all day, which is basically what I did but I prepare like I write the April Fool's content two weeks in advance we design a front page for the site like it's a technological production. And I will tell you, that does not like production my April Fool's rules, okay. Okay, what are they? Rule number one, a good prank lets everyone in on the joke so that you realize that you've been fooled, you are included in the joke. It is not at your expense. It is to make you feel included. It's not about humiliating anybody. It's not about cruelty. It's like when you hear a really good bad pun when you go, Oh, I just got that that moment of I got the joke that should feel somewhat pleasurable and not like creepy or shameful. Rule number two, an effective April Fool's prank is just this side of plausible it is just possible like wait a minute, are they actually creating their own cryptocurrency? We also have non fungible tokens, by the way. So it's not so outlandish that you're like, Oh, okay. Sure. Right, huh. So the rules are, that a good prank lets everyone in on the joke that getting the joke doesn't feel gross. And that the joke itself is just possible. Maybe this is happening? Oh, wait, could this be real? Because if it's rooted in some form of specificity, then people might believe it. But I have another great prank story for you today about an MIT freshmen who tried to prank the entire Harvard student body by setting up a fake dating service, and ended up making real matches in the process. So a little dude named Liam, started a fake dating app, as a prank for Harvard students built it in his MIT dorm room. But it legitimately took off like people were like, This is great. I mean, you saw Facebook happen? What why wouldn't there be a dating app? The Harvard marriage pact was modeled off of a real service called Marriage pact, which matches students with backup spouses. So already, you're kind of like, oh, wait a minute here. It was a joke. There was this super long questionnaire to find a spouse and they didn't think anyone would actually fill it out. Clearly, they've never met people who have signed up for eHarmony. Because that's nine years of your life to fill out that questionnaire, if I remember correctly, roughly. But it actually it really worked. Tons of people responded. And poor Liam was like, well, now I gotta help these people. So he had to change the name to ex ex ex, ex ex ex. And he wrote an algorithm based on the stable marriage problem, which is a theory that your ex his ex, his ex is your perfect match. I feel like I need to diagram that. So your axes, right? Okay, so everyone gets your whiteboards and your IRS monitors, your axes? Access. Okay, next is your perfect match. So it's kind of like so hinge is based on who you're connected to through social media, right? So this is the opposite of that. Like, this is just like removing two doors from the frames and whoever's in the third room, that's your perfect match.

Well, that kind of makes sense if you think about it, because right, your ex's ex probably has similar tastes to you.

Right? It's like the Romans version of the enemy of my enemy, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, you had some compatibility with somebody right. And they had some compatibility with somebody maybe that that that third somebody is your perfect, interesting theory I have heard. So hinge started

out as it was your Facebook friends, like friends, my friends, so you would have one degree of connection separation from them. And that was how it was in the beginning. And I know my cousin met his wife through it then. And one of the things that they really loved was that they had one person in common and so they could both ask that person about each other. Yeah, before they even went on the date. So let's talk. Sure. Yeah, so I actually us together. I think that level of familiarity does does really work for some people. So that's really interesting.

Never heard of that. And I mean, a lot of the people that you're connected with on Facebook are people with whom you had either a kind of like a natural connection, like you work together, or you went to school together, or you resided in the same place. So there's something that's going to connect you with people

with similar similar ideas. Yeah. Wow. Really cool. Yeah.

Well, the freshman class group chat, which I love the fact that those are four words I just said the freshman class group chat was like this is a scam. They took our info and they ran with it and other students were like, you know, I'm not so worried about The data is shared. And I would probably use this as an option to match people and actual people got matched together. Can you believe that? So, do you think that the idea that your x is x is x is your perfect match? Is that a valid algorithm? I mean, you've written about dating apps.

I think that that's an interesting algorithm. I do think that your ex is your ex for a reason, though, I should. And so and there X might be an ex for a reason. But I genuinely just think like, it helps when you have people in common. So I bet when it's your X as X as X, you probably have some mutual friends overlapping in that circle, most likely. And I do think that that is an indicator for success. It's not the only indicator, obviously, for success. Lots of people are complete strangers and have nobody in common. Yeah, and nothing in common. But I do think the idea that you have something shared between you to like a shared universe, and whether that's in person or a place like I can tell you one time, there's this place in San Diego that I always go to and has really good lobster mac and cheese back in the days when I could tolerate lactose. So a while ago, I used to go there. I know it was it was it, but it's a bar and grill. And I used to go there and hang out there. Whenever I was in San Diego and Kai and I, when we first started dating, we went down to San Diego. And he was like, oh, there's this bar. I really like I like to go there and watch sports. And I was like, Oh, we went there. I was like this summer, I always go to when we're downtown. So I want to take you to so it's I think when you have some sort of shared interest or commonality, whether it's personal replays, I think it does help in terms of sort of cementing your relationship and saying like, Okay, this is like sort of meant to be, and whether that's psychological or not, I don't know.

Yeah. I think that as you grow and evolve, you sort of hone some parts of yourself and discard other parts and old habits and things that aren't working. And the things that you keep might bring you more in common with people who used to be with people you were with, like, I mean, there's a lot of like celebrity stories about these two people got divorced and they married.

Yeah, that's really hard. There's a new rom com about that. I haven't seen it yet.

And I'm not sure if that's the bond of having gone through the trauma of a very public breakup, and that this person understands, or maybe you just have a lot in common because the ex of your ex is your perfect match. Yeah, sure. For sure. Yeah.

Sarah, what is your love to go from this April Fool's prank turned good. Very wholesome April Fool's prank.

It's a very wholesome, that's what you want your April Fool's pranks to be I want them to be wholesome and inclusive and silly. I'm a big fan of silly. So my love to go today on April Fool's is trying to make somebody laugh in a good way today. Yeah. Especially yourself. Not at their expense. Never at someone's expense. Let them in on the joke and laugh together. It's the best way. We would love to hear your favorite April Fool's Day prank. You should totally email me because I need I need ideas for next year. I mean, I think about this all year like April, big holiday for me. I have a list. I have a list of options. I mean, it takes it takes a lot of thinking. So if you've got ideas for April Fool's Day prank, I want you to email me at lovestruck Daliah frolic dot media and you can follow us on Instagram at lovestruck daily you can go to my website which is smart bitches trashy books calm and buy some bitcoin not really, it's not real. And we would love for you to like and review and subscribe and tell a friend and just open the window and yell about our podcast. But don't scare your neighbors. We would love to spread the word and bring more love and happiness and silliness to people's days. Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler and little Scorpion studios and Gillian Davis with executive producer frolic media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast and we wish you a very happy silly happily ever after. With Love with you I'm in love with you