Why Women Should Get Excited for This New Dating App
A new dating app puts women in the driver’s seat
By Seattle Mag April 21, 2014
This article originally appeared in the May 2014 issue of Seattle magazine.
!–paging_filter–pimg src=”/sites/default/files/newfiles/0514_sirenapp.jpg” style=”float: left; margin: 10px;” height=”232″ width=”350″Women who’ve tried online dating know the drill: spend hours crafting a profile that precisely reflects the individual you are (and the individual you’d like to meet), set it live and get instantly bombarded with requests from men using a scattershot approach (send enough emails and something’s bound to hit!), men who clearly haven’t read your profile at all. It can be a bit demoralizing. That’s why Seattle digital artist Susie Lee enlisted graphic designer Katrina Hess to help her develop SIREN (a href=”http://siren.mobi/” target=”_blank”siren.mobi/a; due to launch mid-May), a mobile-only dating app that puts women in control of the interaction. “For women, a common experience is one of harassment, reduction to sexual objects and lack of control,” Lee says of existing dating sites. “For decent men, trolling is just as uncomfortable and disheartening.” Consequently, Siren is a platform in which women manage their visibility—a man can’t even see a woman’s profile unless she makes it visible to him. In addition, Lee says, Siren “gives people the chance to discover the individual beyond the profile,” by way of open-ended daily questions and phone-video challenges (such as, find something chartreuse and tell us about it)—the quick, genuine responses to which create a real-time portrait, rather than a static archive of traits. Socially oriented, the app also welcomes “matchmakers,” who can recommend good men to women and give advice to men. Though Siren is a game-changer in the online dating world, some tactics remain tried and true. As Lee says, “We encourage charming the pants off someone.” em(Photo: Siren prototypes in progress)/em/p
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Photo Essay: Ferry Therapy
Words and photographs by Anna Starr.
Riding the ferry is my favorite Seattle pastime. At any given time on a Washington State Ferry you will find a group of tourists with too many suitcases, someone in work clothes peacefully napping, a jigsaw puzzle diligently being completed, lovers having a Titanic-esque moment on a balcony (fun fact: those balconies are called pickleforks),…
AANHPI Month: Where to Celebrate, Eat, and Learn Around Seattle
From festivals and museum exhibits to food tours and historic neighborhoods, here are a few ways to mark the month across the region.
Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month—known as AANHPI Month—is observed in the U.S. each May. It began as a weeklong observance in 1978 and expanded to the full month in 1992. Asian, Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities in the United States extend back much further, including to the late 16th century, when…
Black Panther Park in Skyway Becomes First Black Panther Park in the World
The new community garden honors the Black Panther Party’s legacy of food justice and the Skyway neighbors who helped bring it to life.
On a sunny Sunday earlier this month, at the corner of 75th Avenue and Renton Avenue South, the community gathered for the opening of Skyway’s Black Panther Park. Inspired by the Black Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children program that compelled the federal government to provide breakfast in schools, Black Panther Park is a community…
Rearview Mirror: A Family Coming Apart, SIFF, and My First Fashion Show
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
The Family House A house can hold a lot, and Seattle Rep’s Appropriate knows that. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Tony-winning play, directed here by Timothy McCuen Piggee, drops the Lafayette siblings into their late father’s hoarded, falling-apart Arkansas plantation home for an estate sale, and lets the whole thing crack open from there. The sibling dynamics are…