“I’d by no means actually performed the web relationship factor,” Los Mayers mentioned. Mayers, an app developer residing in Brooklyn, had met all of his earlier companions in particular person the old school method. However final summer season, his ex broke up with him, and newly single, he determined to provide on-line romance a shake. Mayers spent a month on Hinge. He obtained recommendation from his pals and recommendations on profile pictures, spent all day writing personalised messages, and even tried paying for a premium account. However by the top of it, all Mayers discovered was disappointment. “It felt just like the apps simply weren’t for me,” he mentioned. However Mayers is a builder, and he considered a novel resolution. He made a relationship app that was only for him. Actually, for him and nobody else.
It’s referred to as “Flirt With Los.” There’s no algorithm recommending an countless stream of polished pictures. There are not any “Tremendous Likes” to think about. The app doesn’t attempt to promote you subscriptions whenever you run out of swipes. There aren’t any swipes to start with. There’s just one profile to select from. You open the app, kind in your Twitter or Instagram username, and there he’s. It’s an image of Mayers with two choices: “flirt” or “cross.” Flirt With Los is value a obtain for those who’re single. You simply would possibly discover the love of your life.
The Web promised to carry us collectively, however 30 years in, it looks as if it’s driving us aside. For a lot of, the apps and units that fill our lives are alienating issues even whereas the net affords an unprecedented form of interpersonal connection. Relationship apps are a primary instance. Thousands and thousands of single strangers are searching for love on-line, however extra individuals than ever earlier than say it’s hard to find a date. However in a world the place expertise attracts up unusual, unwritten obstacles between us, Flirt With Los goes in a special path. It’s a form of direct one-on-one connection that just about no different app can supply.
It’s unfiltered self-expression. The app offers you a selfie of Mayers, standing confidently along with his head cocked to the aspect, trying right into a mirror at a clothes retailer. He’s carrying a t-shirt, a gold chain, patent leather-based sneakers, and what appears to be like like a skirt. Not your factor? Attempt a special app.
In the event you hit cross, it brings up a photograph of Mayers crying and asks you to strive once more. While you hit the flirt button, and it’s exhausting to withstand, it brings up a collection of prompts. “Hey los, vibing your fashion… hmu sometime?” or “Glowin’ a lot? Magic on level.” In the event that they aren’t to your liking, you hit refresh and it generates extra. Mayers needed to remove the stage fright that comes with a clean textual content field. “I simply need you to choose one thing that resonates as flirty and fascinating. It doesn’t should be about discovering the right phrases, it’s only a second of connection,” he mentioned.
In 2023, Mayers challenged himself to launch a brand new app each month for a yr. A part of it was about beefing up his coding expertise, however he was additionally exploring a model new method to consider making software program.
“I spent a number of time attempting to resolve these two elements of myself, the a part of me that has this CEO, builder form of vitality, and the aspect of me that looks like a rapper and simply needs to make artwork,” Mayers mentioned. “I needed to see if I might drop apps the way in which different individuals put out mixtapes.”
A number of tech corporations construct their enterprise round “connection,” however by turning apps into artwork initiatives, he takes it a step additional. Mayers needs his apps to attach you with him, or at the least his uncommon type of private expression.
Mayers went by means of a number of totally different iterations, some extra profitable than others. He launched a reminder app referred to as Intentional that gives personalised encouragement based mostly on the way you describe your to-do checklist. He discovered customers realized to phrase their duties based mostly on the form of suggestions they needed from the app. Then there was postypost, an unhinged social media app that makes use of AI to rewrite your posts as soon as a day based mostly on an ever-changing cycle of themes. It helps you to specific your self with out worrying about sounding intelligent and provides a weird layer to your social connections.
However Flirt With Los is the purest instance of the shape. The entire thing is partly a cheeky little joke, however there’s a degree of seriousness to it as nicely. “It’s simply probably the most private factor I’ve ever performed,” Mayers mentioned. “All my apps are based mostly on an issue I’ve skilled, however that is the primary time it’s actually saying ‘That is me. That is my face, and that is the issue I’m having. I can’t discover a date.’” It was so private, in reality, he had a tough time releasing it. The app was such a present of vulnerability that Mayers sat on it for weeks earlier than he had the braveness to share it. “However then I obtained this sense of readability. If you wish to discover connection, particularly with the barrier of expertise, you need to current 100% of your self, with all of your flaws,” he mentioned.
After years of bland, company, copycat sameness, the tech business is lastly at a second of change. The massive tech corporations are rewriting the paradigm of society-wide communication channels, and experimenting with new types of content material creation and consumption—however the shifts on the decrease finish of the chain are simply as important.
Mayers mentioned his work is a part of a burgeoning motion of unbiased app builders who’re taking part in with what, precisely, apps might be. It’s the form of exploration we haven’t seen for the reason that early days of the iPhone. There’s Drumroll, an app that spins by means of your digicam roll, lots of of pictures at a time, to create a kind of memory-spanning flip ebook. @Me hearkens again to the early days of the web with ephemeral, AIM-style reside textual content chatting. Knock helps you to ship Snapchat-esque-videos to your pals, however they’ll’t embody sound, which is supposed to encourage extra artistic expression. Soundmap crosses Pokemon Go along with Bandcamp, letting artists drop singles on a map for customers to exit and accumulate. And, after all, numerous app builders together with Mayers are experimenting with non-boring makes an attempt to harness AI, with moodboards, diaries, playlist builders, and extra.
Flirt With Los is straightforward. You open it up, decide your flirts, and transfer on along with your day. It’s cute, if just a little anticlimactic, however Mayers guarantees the magic comes after you shut the app. In any case, except you typed in a pretend username, you probably did give him your social media deal with.
“Belief and imagine, for those who maintain flirting, I shall be sending out DMs,” Mayers mentioned. “I’ve turned myself into an individual that can take that shot. Count on it to return your method for those who obtain the app.”
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