The League: the real thing or just another dating fad?

No online dating app has made more waves than The League, founded by Amanda Bradford, a Stanford GSB grad. It started in SF and recently launched in NYC, and pretty much everyone I know has either joined or applied for it. It would be very interesting to see how this unfolds. This NY Post article is somewhat unflattering in its portrayal of the site. Some of the quotes are freaking hilarious, a parody of the well-educated urban elite.

http://nypost.com/2015/06/23/heres-a-dating-app-for-shallow-people-who-…

 
Best Response
snatch:
mbavsmfin:

I agree with you entirely on this. I would love to hear your view on how SATC destroyed NYC culture.


To give you a better understanding, SATC is to girls what American Psycho is to you guys.

West Village brownstone : American Gardens Building
Brunch at Mercer Kitchen : Dinner at Dorsia
Finally convincing some wealthy, aged "finance tycoon" to marry you : Shooting a kitten???

While you've probably figured out that M&E isn't so good for the LinkedIn profile, your female counterpart hasn't realized that the career of "freelance blogger" just doesn't offer great exit opps. Not like she cares, anyway--NYC is filled with rich finance dudes, one of whom she'll totally marry and have six babies with. It doesn't matter that she's 26 years old and barely makes a livable wage, because money doesn't DEFINE her. Besides, YOU should be bankrolling her lifestyle since you're flush with cash anyway and because she DESERVES it.

She's cute! She's smart! She's funny and quirky and "a complete nerd"! She spends $200 on chiffon shirts she can't afford, carries a PADFOLIO she barely uses, and grabs La Colombe on her way to her temporary BuzzFeed gig in the morning--she's a YOUNG PROFESSIONAL. You should be honored to date a catch like her.

SATC destroyed NYC culture by encouraging delusional brats to come and try their chances here. The show glorified NY by only showing cute stuff, like shoe shopping and snow(!!!!), while cutting out shots of garbage mountains on the black slush-covered sidewalks and the rat battalions that love them. NYC is overpriced, filthy, depressing, and filled with sociopaths, but these bobbleheads seem to love it. And if Carrie could make it here on an artist's salary, so can ANY ambitious, talented girl!

Unfortunately for the universe, these girls don't really get what ambition and talent really are. It still surprises me when I meet women my age [or even older] who talk like they're illiterate cartoon squirrels, going on and on about their stressful and demanding jobs as EAs or fashion stylists. Really? Was it that hard to book a hotel room within 1 mile of the conference center? Was it so painfully difficult to sit around at a photo shoot for, God forbid, 9-and-a-half hours, taking selfies and playing Candy Crush? Was it worse than leaving for the airport in the middle of the night to fly to some state you forgot was even a part of the Union so you can work out of a conference room that smells faintly of cabbage or cheese for the unforeseen future? OMGGGGGGG, YESSSS, it was SO bad that she was LITERALLY going to DIE.

The amount of complaining and whining to which I'm forced to listen is truly astonishing. These girls actually think that their roles as Community Manager at a social media marketing startup or Account Strategist at a "boutique fashion PR firm" are more stressful and demanding than life. They complain about how everything "isn't fair"... I don't think I've heard anyone say that in the past five years, other than my five-year-old nephew when he had chicken pox. I somehow dodged being inflicted with Special Little Snowflake Syndrome, so guess what? I'm now known as being "SUCH a Miranda" (the cynical, workaholic ginger in the bunch who just so happens to be the least attractive and most unhappy. Fun.)

So what you have is the deadly combo of SATC reruns offering a grossly misleading depiction of NY to an idealistic moron with an inflated sense of self. This girl truly believes that she's earned the RIGHT to live and play here for God knows what reason, and can't wait to meet her own Mr. Big, preferably one who makes at least mid six figures so that they'll never need to move to Connecticut because she can't imagine EVER living anywhere else (despite the fact that she only moved here last March).

As for this "League"... thing, I predict that it'll die a slow, quiet death. Any human being with a panty drop-enducing resume and a modicum of social grace doesn't need a fucking dating app, especially those of the female variety. If you are a girl in SF or NYC, you will get hit on at any bar, so long as you 1) don't look like a bridge troll, and 2) aren't a raging cunt. This girl and her friends have apparently failed on both counts. Then there are plenty of creeps and high functioning autistic individuals with impressive academic pedigrees, but the super elitist of these (to which the founder is probably trying to appeal in order to boost "prestige") will likely scoff at the fact that CMU alumni are allowed to join. What you'll be left with are a bunch of socially awkward nerds from Cornell and insufferable feminists who only look good in dim lighting, and nobody needs to download an app to deal with that shit... just head on over to any bar in Midtown!

 
laststance:

I tend not to like to associate myself with people who feel like where they went to college is the defining part of their life.

If college isn't a defining part of your life, then you probably either had no fun or didn't like your school.

 

NESCAC I like to think ill have many, many more defining moments in my life than college. There is no such thing as a 'peak' in my world.

Anyway, as to the League, it's pretty stupid. A buddy (who's a VP) at GS IBD was denied- probably because he went to a school in Alabama. So, so stupid. If it can't make money, it won't be around for long.

 

Dude, this is NYC, not bumblefuck alabama. Being a IBD VP at a BB is dime a dozen. No big deal. Your friend probably got dinged because he's not attractive or interesting enough.

There are plenty of state school alums on The League, so it's not all about academic pedigree. It's a combination of factors, akin to getting into an elite b-school.

 

Well... You're not wrong. He's not the prettiest human alive. But it was my understanding that this was an app for upwardly mobil young professionals to date, without the annoyance of underachieving individuals. If they are really choosing people based off looks (which are subjective) and their own opinion of what constitutes 'interesting', then it's another stupid, elitist popularity contest.

So, it's worse than I thought. They don't stand a chance.

 

I'm on the SF version. Everything these interviews and articles say about the app is bullshit.

  1. Highly selective about schools? Wrong, I've seen people from USF, Fashion Institute, etc, on the app.
  2. Guys have to be 24 or older? I'm on the app an I'm 23.
  3. No immature pictures? All my pictures are from college; I haven't taken many since I started working full time.
 

I finally got on The League a few weeks ago. I started at 740,000 people in front of me and didn’t pay anything. It took me a week to get off the waitlist. I got a few matches immediately that were much higher quality and response rate than Tinder. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

The waitlist isn't real it's a marketing feature to create a sense of scarcity

"The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly" - Robert A. Wilson | "If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

Yeah that’s what it seems like. They kept sending me messages to pay and eventually I jumped ahead of everyone on the list after a week. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

When I was single the tiers went:

Plenty of Fish , eHarmony, etc = old people and weird losers

Tinder = blue collar community college trash, most unattractive. If you are on Tinder you are likely low value

Bumble = nice tinder replacement but anything of quality migrated. Basically the Tinder people found Bumble and the Bumble people went to Hinge

Hinge = the gold standard. If you were attractive, college educated, had a career, etc. this was your app of choice.

This was a few years ago so maybe things changed. Remember hearing about the League but never had a need for it

 

Bumble and The Hinge blow. Hard. On hinge I had a bunch of notifications from people I absolutely did not want to talk to. Not sure why you're into that. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

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The poster formerly known as theAudiophile. Just turned up to 11, like the stereo.

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