The Wonderful Girls of Lulu, Alleged Yelp for males

Nine months before, women and men alike recoiled during the launch of Lulu, "
the Yelp for men
," a cellular application for standing ex-boyfriends. Making use of brands and pictures culled from Twitter, Lulu females take a test about male pals' manners, ambitions, and appearance; Lulu scores the solutions and assigns score on a ten-point scale. Ladies may also pick hashtags from a large number of pre-written summaries: #Sexual-Panther, #AinAnatomy, #WillWatchRomComs, #LoserFriends, #NoGoals. Just women, as verified by their particular Twitter accounts, can read Lulu pages. There isn't any Lulu hashtag for impotency, but that is approximately what the results are when one signs into the application. They can observe how frequently their profile is seen — and then he can upload hotter photos while longing for the number one — but the guy cannot see, change, or reply to the viewpoints of women.

"Wow. It is straight-up harassment. It invites ladies which will make community digital slander about folks. We wonder exactly how society would respond if I made an app that allow males rate females they knew and news about how naughty these are typically,"
a Reddit individual labeled as JizzCreek
reported, summarizing the then-dominant view of Lulu. Finally, a problem that feminists and misogynists alike could acknowledge: Lulu was "
reductive
" and "sex-stereotypic." Anonymous intimate analysis "isn't empowering. It really is weird," the
XX Factor's Amanda Hess typed
. "The real-world program is absolutely nothing more than a means for spiteful ex-hookups to spew monthly period hatred upon those that have wronged all of them,"
Total Frat Move concluded
.

Nine several months as well as over 1 million users afterwards, Lulu estimates it achieves one out of four school ladies in the us. But a funny thing happened on the way to the man-hating free-for-all: the ladies happened to be wonderful.

Among Lulu's 2.5 million ratings — 500,000 which happened to be wanted by the men themselves — the average score is actually 7.5. Among reviewers which self-identify as ex-girlfriends and hookups, 70 per cent of ratings are 7.0 or higher. Whenever the product reviews come from buddies, 80 % are raised above 7.0. (1 / 3rd of Lulu reviews come from hookups and exes. The rest come from buddies, family relations, crushes, and present girlfriends.) Per Lulu's computations, the three most widely used hashtags tend to be #WillActSilly, #CleansUpGood, and #EpicSmile. Positive hashtags tend to be picked 3 x more often than bad types. "It's definitely skewing good," Lulu advertising and marketing manager Deborah Singer claims. "women are not using Lulu to bash guys. They're happening to yell regarding the good dudes, to advise their friends."

The absence of unrestrained viciousness isn't necessarily reassuring, however. When I 1st opened Lulu on my cellphone, we gasped out loud. There, in a tiled show inside the hand of my personal hand, had been photos of every solitary guy i understand, large white numbers and hot pink hashtag descriptions next to their own faces. A vintage hookup is 6.9 and it has a #OneTrackMind. (True.) A vintage cubicle companion is 8.6 and wants #420. (As suspected.) A man I when rejected is 9.0 and an #EnergizerBunny. (Is the guy nonetheless single?) A buddy's brother is 5.1 possesses #NoGoals. (some body should check up on him.) A gay buddy is 8.6, #GonebyMorning. (Because the guy don't rest more than?) My cousin, employer, and high-school English instructor haven't yet been rated. (Thank God.) After searching his profile, we encounter an 8.7 with #KissableLips. Halfway through a discussion about medical health insurance, we realize I am observing his lips. I am mortified additionally not able to stop searching — exactly the same way We felt when I 1st signed into Lulu.

At Lulu HQ, they discuss the circle's good ratings in terms of "the mean-girl myth," "this notion that ladies are mean, and in case you give all of them their own area, they will act defectively," Singer clarifies. Since Lulu does not allow write-in ratings, there's a limit to just how harsh answers is generally; there is no bad corollary for #AinAnatomy.

As a phenomenon, though, "mean ladies" typically relates to female-on-female cruelty. Scientific studies of "
indirect aggression
" show girls behaving most cruelly to their same-sex colleagues, possibly to-tear straight down intimate competitors. Possibly promoting everyone else date a male friend that you could not sleep with is some type of distraction strategy. Or we come across our very own exes through rose-tinted sunglasses as a coping procedure. "In the event the guy sucked, you still slept with him," among my personal feminine friends mentioned. "Females hate to admit if they sleep with losers because it means they are feel slutty."

The large scores produces some thing of an Olympic-gymnastics-scoreboard effect: whenever everybody becomes a 10, modest scores become damning. Actually large collective ratings can be slightly cruel within topical-score malfunctions: men with a 10 for intercourse but a 4 for devotion feels like a cad. Many of my male pals have actually "nice man, but" critiques: laughter and manners clustered around nine, look and sex several points lower.

A buddy with seven critiques had been apparently a cad for some hookups, "nice man but" to other individuals. "the facts sits someplace in the middle," he says with a shrug. "I am sure I had both 9.0 gender and 6.5 sex. And far below 6.5." His look results may include 4 to 10. "certainly I am not a 10, but 4 is actually insulting. That's like ‘someone tossed acid during my face' poor." To be fair, in two weeks of continuous Lulu utilize, I didn't see one look rating below 4. The guy later on confessed that their 10 originated from a buddy he questioned to stuff the ballot in his benefit.

As an event secret a week ago, I agreed to lookup men's room Lulu scores. Though universally anti-Lulu, the men's outrage usually abated whenever they saw their own very kind scores. A number of admitted to watching kernels of reality within their profiles, and everybody nitpicked their particular hashtags. "I can reveal those that are not real," one man launched. "#420, #FartMachine, #CantBuildIkeaFurniture. We hardly ever smoke cigarettes grass, I never pass gasoline facing ladies, I am also excellent at Ikea development." A man marked #F**kedMeandChuckedMe marveled, "Even my ‘bad' critiques are sort of great. I seem like a new player."

The hashtags are most likely the lowest accurate section of Lulu; they are available from a prewritten set and should not end up being averaged, which means that they cannot use the wisdom in the group. (Assuming a few unknown exes could even be considered a "audience" after all.) sectioned off into negative and positive groupings, the hashtags appear to be more confounding a portion of the knowledge for males. Categorizing #Trekkie, #VideoGamer, and #420 as negatives seemed unfair; #Man-scaped had been unpleasant; #ChristianGrey and #MrDarcy mentioned a lot more about the women compared to males; #SleepsintheWetSpot, indicating postcoital chivalry, grossed everyone else down.

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Gents and ladies as well fretted about the "message" that hashtags like #AlwaysPays and #WillWatchRomComs send. Looking at how quickly I modified to Lulu's high-skewing score program, i did so concern that stretched utilize would somehow indoctrinate us to Lulu's price system or, at least, its mildly grating #Smells-Amazeballs sound. But I do not think it just happened. I also don't believe my view of guys became a lot more transactional and dehumanizing — although using the software using my female buddies did open some crasser conversations than we usually have. After advising myself how she'd speed many of her exes on a 10-point size, a buddy exactly who views Lulu also "fucked up" to become listed on marveled, "It's fun to rate sex!" She after that asked me to track down ex-boyfriends' product reviews on the webpage. "there can be some really serious class inflation going on," she stated about an ex described #ManSlut on Lulu. "Flat 6. Really, maybe 6.5 for passion. Really, no. I recently had a vivid flashback. I would personally go lower than 6."