Saturday, February 27, 2021

Amazon Dating

I was asking to explain what the joke behind Amazon Dating: The Future of Dating is: 

This isn't a site by Amazon actually, though it's made to look like it is

In general this seems to be a commentary on how online dating has commodified love and made it like shopping online (Amazon specifically). Love isn't supposed to be like online shopping but there're parallels between dating sites and online shopping. Actually this could also be a commentary on modern love

Search bar:
"hot singles near me" - this is used to advertise online dating/s3x sites to pull you in

Navbar:
- Deal of the Day - Some dating sites give you one or more daily picks, just like online shopping sites do
- Prime Video - Perhaps a commentary on video chatting, or snapchat. This also leads to Chat Roulette, a site where you can chat with random people
- Your Last Relationship - Online shopping sites let you see your last order(s) to review it/them. This links to Britney Spears's "Toxic" music video. So it says your last relationship was "toxic". This might be a commentary on how people always blame their exes, since it's easier than blaming themselves
- Don't see what you're looking for? - Usually for online shopping this is a way to give feedback. Here it goes to Netflix. So presumably if you don't find a promising potential partner you'll watch Netflix at home
- Help - This goes to WikiHow's "How to Unhook a Bra". So this is saying nowadays men don't know how to do this and need to look it up online. This might be a commentary on how even the most basic of life skills are now taught online if you need it
- FAQ - This tells you this is a joke site. Apparently the pictures of singles are of real people who want to be on the site
- Legal - This goes to a non-ghosting agreement. This is a commentary on how ghosting (ignoring someone - typically someone you're chatting with on an online dating site) is not nice. And how nowadays people date multiple people at once (the non-official relationship clause)

Delivery address:

90069 is indeed a real ZIP code in LA. But 69 is also a sexual position.

Listings:
The available singles are listed with their first names, ages, star ratings and the number of reviews, kind of like you'd see on an online shopping site.

Some are marked as best sellers just like items on online shopping sites, presumably to get your attention. Some are marked down in price (possibly artificially as a technique to fool you into thinking you're getting a good deal). "Amazon's Choice" may be a sponsored listing, or what someone at Amazon really thinks is a good match (buy).

Occasionally an item (person) is "currently unavailable", presumably so you get a feeling of scarcity (so you need to buy what is available before it disappears). This scarcity is also emphasised with "Only 13 left in stock - order soon" - which may or may not be true.

"Meet Today" is a commentary on instant gratification - quick shipping for online shopping parallels the instant gratification people get on Tinder and similar platforms.

Individual reviews:
The descriptions of the listings seem to be making fun of bios in online dating. Each is available in various heights, just like you can choose sizes or other characteristics of stuff you buy online.

"Fit" is what you see on Wish (knockoff cheap shit online shopping) since you can't try before you buy - so it's other users saying how accurate the measurements were.

Not sure why love languages are mentioned, why "words of affirmation" is selected for everyone, or why you can change the selection (but that doesn't do anything). This seems to parallel how you can choose different colour for online shopping.

The texts of the reviews seem to be cribbed from real items and are not relevant to the site's aim to satirise online dating/shopping.
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