“At Chem 101: Male, Brunette. I wish I was an ion so I could form as exothermic bond with you.”
Northwestern students no longer have to experience the dreaded butterflies in their stomach as they gather up all their courage to admit to someone how they really feel. Instead, they can simply post anonymous witty flirts like the one above on LikeALittle, a new website that its creators call a “flirting-facilitator platform.”
McCormick freshman Michael Haapaniemi was told about the main site, based at Stanford University, by a friend who is a junior there. Haapaniemi contacted Stanford founder Evan Reas (Stanford MBA ‘09) to propose a Northwestern branch of the site.
Haapaniemi launched the site earlier this week and it quickly spread, first around his dorm, Bobb, then across campus.
“We posted a few before we were planning to launch the site, just to get it started,” LikeALittle’s Northwestern founder says. “While we were doing that, someone ‘liked’ a post which shows up on your Facebook. Apparently everyone else started liking it too and it spread from there.”
Reas was inspired by a few sites with similar purposes, but noticed that these sites were small and relatively isolated. Although they were originally working on a different idea, Reas and his business partners decided to develop their own site for Stanford.
“We really see it as a location-based communication platform,” Reas says. “We wanted to bridge that divide to make it easy to communicate with people in the same location, and change the psychological dynamic of the way we interact with other people. There is this huge fear of rejection. There is that barrier when it’s a person-to-person interaction, and it’s much lower when it’s anonymous or online.”
“At Hinman: Female, Blonde. I know we’re not in Professor Flitwick’s class, but you still are charming.”
Although everything on LikeALittle is anonymous, the site still manages to keep a lighter tone, even without requiring approval before flirts are posted. Users can report abuse and remove posts themselves, and Haapaniemi monitors the site about every hour in order to be sure everything is complimentary.
“I hope they have fun using the site,” Haapaniemi says. “A lot of the posts are serious and it’s a situation where they can’t talk to the person in person. The anonymity of it is why people are really liking it.”
In the next couple months, Reas expects to make changes to LikeALittle to make it even more appealing. Although currently only in the beta phase, Reas and his partners are developing a new feature that will allow people to post comments by event, as well as by location. Reas would also like to spread the site to more schools.
“At Frances Searle: Male, Brunette. You know nothing about environmental politics. But watching you smile makes me forget about water pollution.”
Although Reas also says he has heard of people approaching others after posting on the site, Northwestern student Katie More, who has read the site a few times since its launch, is more skeptical.
“It’s cute and funny but I don’t know if it’s really going to do anything because you don’t really know who’s posting it,” the communications sophomore says. “Also, it’s all so vague, like ‘Female, Brunette.’ That describes a lot of people here but it is fun and interesting to read.”
Even though the posts might be ambiguous and are often just jokes, Haapaniemi still believes it’s an effective way to flirt because of all the creative posts.
“I like when people are getting really creative and bring out their inner poet,” he says. “You know how Facebook became the new way for people to interact? LikeALittle is the new way to flirt.”
Commenter TL makes a good point. Here’s the URL: http://likealittle.com/northwestern/