Meet Willow, the Dating App That Won’t Judge You By The Looks

T listed here are great deal of apps in the marketplace now for young people looking for love: Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid, to call a couple of. Though their rationales vary—Tinder and Bumble are both in regards to the swipe, but on Bumble, ladies result in the very first move, in accordance with OkCupid it is possible to get a handle on exactly how much information you reveal up front—they all have one or more part of typical: Potential mates judge each other considering appearance.

But Willow, a fresh software striking the App Store on Wednesday, is searching for a various approach. As opposed to swiping left or right in line with the first selfie the thing is, you’re prompted to resolve a couple of three questions—written by users—that are created to spark a conversation up. What’s more, users decide when and in case they would like to share pictures along with other users; in the beginning, the responses to these concerns are typical future times see.

The app’s creator Michael Bruch states Willow places the “social” back social media marketing. Bruch, now 24, ended up being fresh away from nyc University as he established the software this past year. He claims he had been seeking to fill a void he noticed when utilizing dating apps that centered on swipes instead of that which you like.

“You can match with a number of individuals you think are good hunting however you don’t really understand much about them unless you begin conversing with them, ” Bruch informs TIME. “If I’m going to invest time with some body i do want to understand that people have one thing to talk about–that’s what’s essential in my experience. ”

Bruch is hoping that same curiosity about discussion is very important to many other young adults too. Thus far, Willow has gained some traction. A day over 100,000 users downloaded the beta version of the app that launched in August, sending an average of three messages.

What’s more, individuals are utilizing it for over simply love that is finding. “It’s be a little more about social breakthrough than strictly dating, ” Bruch says. You can, and you will additionally put it to use to spark up an enchanting discussion with some one that’s not as much as 30 kilometers away. “If you want to access it an have actually a laid-back discussion about video clip games”

The type of the software released Wednesday also contains a “Discover” feature that can help users search what’s trending and better examine concerns they’d be interested in answering.

It’s a fascinating approach provided the recognized shallow nature of today’s millennials—the Me Generation, as TIME’s Joel Stein pronounced in 2013. Today’s dating apps appear to feed to their narcissists that are inner. Plus it’s much easier to make somebody down based on just their face in the place of when you’ve started up a discussion. To observe how users reacted to pages without pictures, OkCupid among the largest internet dating sites, hid profile pictures temporarily in January of 2013 dubbing it “Blind Date time. ” They discovered that their people had been greatly predisposed to answer very first communications through that time, nevertheless the moment the pictures had been turned straight straight straight back on, conversations ended–like they’d “turned in the bright lights during the club at midnight, ” wrote one Chris Rudder, among the site’s founders.

Some millennials are finding that the pressure of putting your face out there for the public to judge can be intimidating—and in some instances, dangerous despite that somewhat depressing result. Just one single glimpse during the jerky messages published into the Instagram account Bye Felipe (which aggregates negative communications females have online) provides a great feeling of just exactly exactly how discouraging it could be for many individuals, but especially for females, attempting to navigate for the reason that artistic area. Individuals may be aggressive, fetishizing, and downright cruel.

Apps like Bumble look for to simply help females circumvent that by placing the charged energy of striking up discussion in entirely within their arms. But Willow would like to replace the focus completely, through the means some body appears as to what his / her passions are. “If your image is certainly not being blasted on the market, the actual quantity of harassment and messages you’re likely to get from the break will be reduced, ” Bruch claims.

On its area, the app’s mission sounds just like a cheesy line from the rom-com: a hapless sap whining that they want somebody would simply take curiosity about their ideas rather than their appearance. But, Bruch and Willow’s other founders are hoping it’s carved a spot on the list of variety apps that focus on the millennial generation’s life online.