For Tate, a divorced father of two from suburban Chicago, the path to true love was paved with conspiracy theories, bizarre memes, and late-night deep dives. His digital breadcrumbs told an honest and poignant story about late-stage capitalism: clips of Black chicks fighting in Waffle Houses, 9-11 trutherism, the Hawk Tuah Girl, Rick Rolling, Chuck Norris jokes, Pepe the Frog, Pizzagate, Charlie Kirk conspiracies, and even Michelle Obama’s girthy dong swaying while Ellen DeGeneres sang karaoke.
“That was basically my social life,” says Tate. “I certainly never thought my Insta-Tok rabbit hole would help me meet someone, let alone the woman of my dreams.”
From Rabbit Hole to Romance
Like many Gen Xers, Tate was burned out on the modern dating scene—the ghosting, the endless texting, the soul-crushing coffee dates that were more like interviews for jobs you realized you didn’t want the minute you met the boss. “I’d basically accepted that life for a white American man in his late forties was losing your hair, only seeing your kids on holidays, and giving half my paycheck to my ex and her new Indian boyfriend.”
His luck changed, though, when he discovered “Digital ID Love,” a new dating app that bypassed the traditional bio and profile nonsense altogether. Instead, “DID Love,” as it’s come to be known, uses a person’s actual TikTok and Instagram algorithm to find matches. “I thought, what do I have to lose? I’d already lost everything,” he recalls, as a wisp of hair falls to his lap.
He signed up, paid the one-time $50 subscription fee, accepted the terms and conditions, and plugged in his usernames. “That was it. My work was done,” says Tate, wearing a Carhartt sweatshirt and a John Deere hat.
The next morning, he woke up to 25 messages from real women who were single, available, and—most importantly—interested. “The amazing thing was that I was interested in them too!”
Their Love Was an Inside Job!
Claire, a 28-year-old brunette bombshell law student from the University of Illinois, was one of them. “There was something anonymous yet deeply revealing about the app,” she says. “I was tired of being hounded by thousands of Uber drivers asking me to marry them. ‘DID Love’ cancels the noise. The algorithm shows you who a person really is, what’s actually going on in their head. It cuts away from the social facades we put up and just shows the whole person, every little perversion, eccentricity, and vulnerability.”
She was immediately drawn to “DID Love” for this reason and had no problem forking out the one-time subscription fee. “I had no idea that 9-11 was an inside job, and I’m certain it would have taken Tate months to bring that up under normal dating circumstances,” she says while taking a sip from her “Never Forget Building 7” mug. Claire also laughs when she recalls all the hours they’ve spent watching the Price Is Right AI videos, or the hidden wisdom behind the hilariously insightful clips of George Carlin. “His HBO special basically foretold the COVID-19 scandemic!”
Tate agrees, noting he learned equally intimate details about Claire, like her belief that Tai Chi walking for men over 40 could give them the body of a 20-year-old. “And you know what?” Tate adds, flexing a bicep. “I’ve never looked better.” He also enjoyed Claire’s sarcastic appreciation for Italian flash mobs and cringy clips from classic TV shows like 90210 and Miami Vice. “I basically modeled my twenties after Luke Perry,” laughs the former community theater actor turned Home Depot manager.
From vaccine ‘misinformation’ information to vegan Big Mac recipes to “Van Life” to, of course, the intricacies of “Big Mike’s” anatomy, Tate and Claire, despite their almost 20-year age gap, found they had no shortage of things to talk and laugh about when they met in person the following day.
They Never Gonna Give Each Other Up
But is this model sustainable? Economist Benji Streets tells America’s Number One Source of Newstainment, GWU! that he’s skeptical. “The scam of most dating apps is to keep you single and consistently paying a monthly fee. A one-time $50 payment isn’t going to buy the creators of “DID Love” a bunker in New Zealand. It’s probably not even going to buy them a bunkbed,” he jokes.
However, Streets concedes that maybe that’s the point. “People actually want to fall in love. If this helps them do that, it’s a disruptive miracle, particularly in the Peak Trash Era.”
Almost six months since meeting on the app, Claire has helped Tate move from his basement bachelor apartment in the suburbs into a plush condo in downtown Chi-Town, which they share. “I’ve also hooked Tate up with a great family lawyer who will fight for him to see his kids more than three times a year,” she says. “The system is broken for middle-aged white American men. We don’t need an algorithm to tell us that.”
For Tate and Claire, they feel nothing but Love toward “DID Love” and believe it’s a dream worth investing in. The couple now regularly donates to the app to keep it running, ensuring that other algorithmically blessed soulmates can find each other in the digital chaos.
“We may be living our best life now,” says Tate, “but trust me, we’ll always find time to watch a good ol’ Waffle House brawl!”
