“I’d by no means actually finished the net relationship factor,” Los Mayers stated. Mayers, an app developer residing in Brooklyn, had met all of his earlier companions in individual the old style approach. However final summer season, his ex broke up with him, and newly single, he determined to offer on-line romance a shake. Mayers spent a month on Hinge. He received recommendation from his associates and recommendations on profile pictures, spent all day writing customized messages, and even tried paying for a premium account. However by the tip of it, all Mayers discovered was disappointment. “It felt just like the apps simply weren’t for me,” he stated. However Mayers is a builder, and he considered a novel answer. He made a relationship app that was only for him. Actually, for him and nobody else.
It’s known as “Flirt With Los.” There’s no algorithm recommending an infinite 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 “move.” Flirt With Los is value a obtain when you’re single. You simply may discover the love of your life.
The Web promised to carry us collectively, however 30 years in, it looks like it’s driving us aside. For a lot of, the apps and gadgets that fill our lives are alienating issues even whereas the net provides an unprecedented type of interpersonal connection. Courting apps are a chief instance. Tens of millions of single strangers are in search of love on-line, however extra individuals than ever earlier than say it’s arduous to discover a date. However in a world the place know-how attracts up unusual, unwritten obstacles between us, Flirt With Los goes in a unique path. It’s a type of direct one-on-one connection that just about no different app can give you.
It’s pure self-expression. The app provides you a selfie of Mayers, standing confidently along with his head cocked to the facet, trying right into a mirror at a clothes retailer. He’s Carrying a t-shirt, a gold chain, patent leather-based footwear, and what appears to be like like a skirt. Not your factor? Attempt a unique app.
In case you hit move, it brings up a photograph of Mayers crying and asks you to strive once more. While you hit the flirt button, and it’s arduous to withstand, it brings up a sequence 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 wished to get rid of the stage fright that comes with a clean textual content field. “I simply need you to select one thing that resonates as flirty and attention-grabbing. It doesn’t need to be about discovering the right phrases, it’s only a second of connection,” he stated.
In 2023, Mayers despatched out a problem to launch an app each month for a 12 months. A part of it was about beefing up his coding abilities, however he was additionally exploring a model new approach to consider making software program.
“I spent a variety of time making an attempt to resolve these two elements of myself, the a part of me that has this CEO, builder type of vitality, and the facet of me that looks like a rapper and simply desires to make artwork,” Mayers stated. “I wished to see if I might drop apps the way in which different individuals put out mixtapes.”
Plenty of tech firms construct their enterprise round “connection,” however by turning apps into artwork tasks, he takes it a step additional. Mayers desires his apps to attach you with him, or at the least his uncommon type of private expression.
He went via a number of totally different iterations, some extra profitable than others. He launched a reminder app known as Intentional that provides customized encouragement primarily based on the way you describe your to-do listing. He discovered customers realized to phrase their duties primarily based on the type of suggestions they wished 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 primarily based on an ever-changing cycle of themes. It permits 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 essentially the most private factor I’ve ever finished,” Mayers stated. “All my apps are primarily based 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, actually, he had a tough time releasing it. It was such a present of vulnerability that Mayers sat on the app for weeks earlier than he had the braveness to share it. “However then I received this sense of readability. If you wish to discover connection, particularly with the barrier of know-how, it’s a must to current 100% of your self, with all of your flaws,” he stated.
After years of bland, company copycat sameness, the tech trade is lastly at a second of change. The massive tech firms 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’ stated his work is a part of a burgeoning motion amongst unbiased app builders who’re taking part in with what, precisely, apps may be. It’s a type of exploration we haven’t seen for the reason that early days of the iPhone. There’s Drumroll, an app that spins via your digital camera roll, a whole lot of pictures at a time, to create a type of memory-spanning flip guide. @Me hearkens again to the early days of the web with ephemeral, AIM-style stay textual content chatting. Knock permits you to ship Snapchat-style movies to your folks, however they’ll’t embrace 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 gather. And, in fact, 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 together with your day. It’s cute, if slightly anticlimactic, however Mayers guarantees the magic comes after you shut the app. In spite of everything, until you typed in a pretend username, you probably did give him your social media deal with.
“Belief and imagine, when you preserve flirting, I will probably be sending out DMs,” Mayers stated. “I’ve turned myself into an individual that can take that shot. Count on it to return your approach when you obtain the app.”