Bushwick resident Tan Roberts has been using dating apps on and off for about four years. Thanks to her being currently single and looking, she has access to a plentitude of creepy unsolicited messages, which in her case means a lot of great material for OKStupid. What started as a regular open mic night of creepy online dating messages is now is it also a web series.
It all started at The Rookery bar one night when Tan and her friends were jointly lamenting about the dating scene in Bushwick and in NYC in general. “I pulled up the app on my phone and started reading some of the more disturbing, unsolicited messages I had received as if it was poetry,” she told us back in September. The Rookery’s owner Jamie thought it was hysterical and suggested to do a night of open mic of the worst online dating messages.
Needless to say it was a hit. It seemed that everyone in Bushwick has received a horribly disturbing/stupid message on OKCupid, Tinder or Grinder.
After several rounds of biweekly OKStupid mics, Tan was approached by a Bushwick-based film production company, Iris Media Works to do a show about it. “We shot it it over the holidays, did some editing and decided the best time to launch it would be for Valentine’s Day,” told us Tan.
The first episode (above) contains several real messages, most of which were received by Tan and her friends as the first messages from their senders. “As in, [this is] how these people are starting their online dating conversations, ha!” said Tan. “I think is so ridiculously crazy that we just had to do something creative with it,” she concluded.
OKStupid team is now encouraging people from all over the country to submit their videos reading their encounters of “OKStupids” or at least to send them in to be read by the OKStupid team in their next episode. You can submit your “datemare” at the email address contribute[AT]okaystupid.tv or you can tweet it them at #okaystupid; or simply tag @okstupidtv on your Instagram pic.
Tan Roberts and the team is currently taking a break from OKStupid nights due to the (incredibly cold and long) winter but we can all look forward to the return of the open mic nights soon. Depending on the number and quality of the submissions, they will also decide on the number of the episodes.
When asked what is the goal of OKStupid, Tan thinks for a second and replies: “The overall for me personally is to show in a fun way just how freakin’ hard it is to date in NYC.” We agree, just take a look at a couple of “datemares” from OKStupid’s Instagram below….
Mustard hips. Submitted by @eyohkay #OKStupid #okstupidtv #cookingwithcreepy #onlinedating
A photo posted by OK Stupid TV (@okstupidtv) on Feb 19, 2015 at 6:34am PST
A photo posted by OK Stupid TV (@okstupidtv) on Feb 16, 2015 at 1:57pm PST
A photo posted by OK Stupid TV (@okstupidtv) on Feb 15, 2015 at 5:17am PST
A photo posted by OK Stupid TV (@okstupidtv) on Feb 13, 2015 at 4:03pm PST