Feb 15th, 2017, 01:41 AM

Be a Hater, Find a Lover

By Elizabeth Knox
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Finally, a dating app that allows you to embrace your inner hater.

There’s something refreshing about acknowledging the fact that you hate the world and pretty much everyone in it, without being criticized. For years, it seems, we have been content with the ever-metastizing dating app black hole that sucks in only the fakers and wannabes. In a society driven by social media, where pigs masquerade as princes and lowly workers put on the façade of being multi-millionaires, it's not difficult to see that the apps currently in rotation have their flaws.

Dating apps often conform to the usual norms of rainbows and butterflies matching people based on mutual interests, ending in a scenario where he likes chipotle and miraculously so does she, leading to a doomed date where they discuss the burrito bowl. But lets face it, rainbows and butterflies can get boring. Everyone needs a little hateful fire in their relationship.

Image Credit: Hater

Hater is a new dating app, launched on February 8, that matches two singles who share a similar distaste towards the same topic. The app flips the popular, and presumably ineffective, concept of pairing singles based on mutual interests. Hater matches you based on things you hate.

The app’s creator is 29-year-old Brendan Alper, a Goldman Sachs banker-turned-comedian who was working on an idea for a comedy sketch when he realized the premise was not a bad idea for a dating app. “Dating is supposed to be fun. Somewhere along the line, dating apps lost sight of that. Hater wants to bring that back,” says Alper. While the app is less than a month old, according to Business Insider it already has 200,000 users and is the top lifestyle app in Germany. 

For the sake of keeping my journalistic integrity intact, I downloaded Hater to see for myself just how the app works. I was presented with topics to rate by simply swiping down to hate, up to love, left to dislike, or right to like — and then the answer was displayed on my profile. With over 2,000 topics to hate or love, it's not hard to weed out the losers from the contenders, whether it's butt selfies (for the pigs) or saying “I love you,” (for the princes). It's easier to gage how someone feels about certain topics. From there, the app combines location, mutual interests, and dislikes, as well as other factors such as age and gender preference to match you with a long list of potential mates.

Although the swipe process is very similar to Tinder, this app enables you to access potential suitors likes and dislikes, allowing you to rule out that one guy who hated “Women’s March.” I enjoyed swiping on topics, such as llamas and Tom Brady, more than I enjoyed swiping guys. You can try to guess which I swiped up and which I swiped down (Hint: As a New Yorker I’m legally obligated to hate Tom Brady). Although finding a relationship based solely on a hatred of Tom Brady is not likely, it certainly is not a bad way to start a conversation.

Image Credit: Hater

If you don’t believe me, believe science. A 2006 study conducted by the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at Austin explained: “We propose that shared negative attitudes about a third party (an individual or group) will facilitate interpersonal closeness more effectively than shared positive attitudes.” 

If discussing your mutual hatred of “climate change deniers” and “King Joffery” isn’t enough to start the conversation, the app comes with icebreakers that allow you to fill in the blanks. For example one guy sent me, “I'm actually in an indie rock band called _______,” to which I responded, "Chick-Fil-A." Although it is not the most stimulating conversation, it certainly opens the floor up for witty banter. 

Hater allows a person to drop their prince-like façade and embrace their inner pig, because it will match them with a person who is actually into that kind of thing. The app will enable the user to distinguish between who is worth their time and who will most likely leave them disappointed the morning after. 

So haters, go get hating because in an increasingly hate-able world, more than ever we need someone to hate it with.