Apple Vision Prophylactics

Would you smash after the first Augmented Reality singles mixer?

HK

GM Randa, I’ve been thinking about how it would be funny to use Hinge on the Apple Vision Pro.

Just Tom Cruise in minority report but for getting 2 beers at Doris. 

It’s bleak. But then something occurred to me that made me feel optimistic. As much as everything has changed with online dating over the last 20 years, some things do appear to not be changing at all. And to articulate this further I think Larry’s Diagrams are going to make a triumphant return. 

As we all know there are 4 stops on the stranger-to-wife pipeline (S2WP).

Stranger, Stranger you think is hot, Person you’d date, Wife

Each bucket has exponentially fewer people until you get to one. Or more recently, 1-3. 

Stranger, Hot Stranger, Would Kiss, Wife

But here is what I find interesting, the degree to which people are comfortable using emerging technology to help them move someone from one bucket to another bucket changes drastically based on which bucket transfer you are doing. 

People are extremely comfortable using cutting-edge tech to determine if they think a stranger is hot; photos, videos, digital aesthetics. We trust and adopt those things quickly.

And yet, I don’t know a single person who makes a habit of video chatting with someone instead of simply going on a first date. That’s because we all intuit that its no use– you can’t move from attraction to limerence without in-person vibe assessment. Same as you can’t buy Xanax without seeing your shrink IRL (they waived that during covid tho) 

But just when you thought this cruel world made sense…tolerence for technolgy goes back up. To go from person you’d kiss to wife (a famously large jump) we return to a state of acceptance of some tech in this process. We develop intimacy by texting late into the night, we sharing memes, facetime, and perhaps would have VR sex if it were possible.

I guess what i’m trying to say is that no matter how good technology gets, I think most people are gonna wanna like…stand in the same room as their girlfriend. 

RS

i’m totally with you on the stages… so let us imagine a way to determine strangers hotness using the vision pro.

first of all - the vision pro could completely eliminate height inflation on dating apps. ppl would stop lying about their heights and also ppl would care less. because i couldn’t tell you if a guy is 5’8 or 5’9 or whatever but if im feeling particularly ruthless and on my bullshit i may swipe left for a height reason. 

picture this - you’ve got the goggles on ripping hinge, but the app is built upon spatial audio and video. so you can walk up to your matches (v1) 3d renderings and check their vibes / see how tall they are… sorta like club penguin but it’s actually you instead of a penguin

there are lots of ways you could make this fun. it could be like, MTV Next but it’s all these hinge guys that i can watch on my vision pro with spatial audio and video. they walk off the bus and they’re like i’m 5’9 i smoke weed ‘sometimes’ and the most spontaneous thing ive ever done is fly across the country at 24 hrs notice 

it won’t change the actual IRL date, but it makes the pre-date process more immersive and fun… i bet you it would lead to less wack first dates? but idk… what is your ideal hinge vision pro experience?

HK

This is an excellent question but it is requiring a lot of mental gymnastics for me because one thing I’ve long known about myself is I do not fuck with early adopters. 

I don’t want to date a “tech enthusiast” and I certainly don’t want to date a “visionary”.

So I’m trying to imagine a somewhat distant future where everyone has some kind of access to augmented reality. 

I’m swiping through thousands of women rapidly using only my eyes, hinge is superimposed directly above a 12-foot-tall projection of a regular season basketball game where the Warriors are up 9 against the new Lebron James-owned expansion team the Las Vegas Dice. Pat Bev’s kid has 12 in the first half. It’s 2044. 

A beautiful woman whos retinal scan reveals her eye color has a similar hexagonal color code makeup to me. This either means we’re highly compatible or distant relatives (tech isn’t fully there yet). But since she’s not Jewish I can assume we’re not related. She’s from Miami. 

“Hey siri – message rachel “What was it like living in Miami before it went under?” 

No, I’m joking. I guess in earnest if there was thing AR could possibly add to dating it would be that maybe your dating profile exists in some kind of physical space? You could learn a lot from someone by how they decorate their room, maybe a profile becomes like a physical space? With a tv show playing, music, art, etc. I think that would be cool. 

RS

your anti early adopter mindset is exactly why i got waymo bread than u harry