So there's this billboard advertisement, promoting a site called Where White People Meet. At first I thought "This is Utah, you don't need a website to meet White People, they're all over the place.". I could understand if you were in a foreign country, like Japan or Zimbabwe, a place where White people are quite scarce but if there's one thing Utah doesn't lack, it's Whites and Mormons. But then I started wondering "People always say I'm not Black, so if I'm not that then aren't I white? In fact, if we're ignored mixed race and simply rounding to the nearest whole number, I'm White. I should sign up!" And sign up I did.
So on the website, you're greeted by a white couple, a man hugging a woman from behind, shining their pearly whites. To be fair, that could be advertising any dating site (I hardly ever see a mixed-race couple advert). Then there's the usual form "I'm a ___ looking for a ___ between ages ___ and ___". Oddly enough, when you pick one gender, it automatically fills in the opposite on the next line. And, nope, can't change it. This is "White People Meet" not "White Homosexuals Meet". Though I find it a bit odd since it's also not called "White Straight People Meet". But, whatever. No homos allowed (guess my lesbian fantasies will have to be fulfilled on a different day).
I wanted to know a bit more about this website. I've only read about them in a news article reporting about the billboard. What does this site have to say about itself? Under about us there's one simple link "Reasons to join". I thought the reason would be pretty evident. It's right there in the name. So they outline 3 reasons to join
1. Choices. "We believe that dating is about choices. You should be able to choose what dating sites you join based on your likes and preferences."
Um, ok. Why should I join your site? Because it exists, essentially. They make it sound like other dating sites force you to date people you won't like (they don't, unfortunately for me).
2. Cost. "With many plans available starting at an extremely low cost of only $4.00, you can afford to give us a try without breaking your pocket book."
I have to admit, that is a cheap cost to sign up. Not as cheap as free, like OKCupid or even Craigslist is but maybe we're paying for quality (Though for $4 you can get yourself two $2 hookers and, if you're lucky, they might even give you a slight discount if you get them at the same time).
3. Why Not? "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You can’t run with the big dogs if you don’t get off the porch. You can’t win if you don’t play….. I think by now you get our point. You can browse for FREE and you can communicate for as little as $4 bucks so give us a try!"
This one isn't so much a reason as it is a concluding paragraph outlining the previous two reasons. Also, I'm pretty sure " You can’t run with the big dogs if you don’t get off the porch." isn't an idiom. I'm assuming they made it up, which explains why they went with the classical gambling saying "You can't win if you don't play" (I edited out the useless .... that made it seem like they were going to write more but said "Ah fuck it, it's 4:30 on a Friday. I'm clocking out".).
Payment:
Before I fork over some money to meet with some white honeys, I should probably figure out what I get for my $4. Like I said earlier, that could get me two nights with two ladies of the night (though the doctor appointment afterwards and penicillin prescription will definitely up that cost by a bit), why should I choose this site over them? Well, signing up and seeing what they offer is free. Just like how it's free to walk into a candy shop. Talking however, will cost you. $4 for 7 days. There are 2 additional options: $14.97 for a month which they claim will save you "$2/month" but it really only saves you 1.03 (to be fair, it's called White People Meet. They probably didn't have any Asians on hand to work out the math for them). The last option is for 6 months at $69 (how clever of them
-_- ). They also go on to claim that choosing this option saves you $15. I'm not sure how they get this figure, since if we take the monthly price of $14.97 and times it by 6, it gives us $89.82, which is $20 saved, not $15 (and if we use the $4 for 7 days that's around $104 for 6 months of service). Clearly, math is not White people's forté.
Armed with both the knowledge of why I should sign up and how much it'll cost me, I set off to sign up for my new dating adventure. First I read the terms of agreement which was pretty standard as far as dating sites go though I did find one thing odd. Despite the fact that the site is called Where White People Meet "You may not post, upload, display or otherwise make available Content that: that promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual;". So it looks like I won't be hooking up with any Donald Trump supporters. So, I input my real name, my super secret spy codename (Felman87) and where I live (though when it came to choose a country, the drop-down menu did not have United States at the top. For shame Where White People Meet. For shame!). All that was left was for me to wait for the confirmation email and then log in.
While I was able to log in and change my profile pic and view other members, I couldn't do much else. The problem is the site is incredibly unstable. It's constantly crashing, either from being on a shitty server or it's being over inundated with requests. It seems odd that it would be this unstable and yet feel confident enough to buy an advertisement for a site. It won't even let me pay my membership fee, that's how terrible things are.
So since I can't do anything else, lets take a gander at the members. I input that I'm looking for someone between the ages of 22 and 33 (since I'm 28, that seems about right. Maybe 22 is a bit young but whatever). There's only 12 people "near" me here in Utah. I put near in quotes because I have no idea what the system constitutes near. I'm getting people from Indianapolis and Houston in my search results. I guess when you consider the infinite span of the universe a few thousand miles really is "near". I'm not interested in a long distance relationship though, so I filtered out the non-Utahns. That leaves me with 7 women. Even after all the controversy, the website is really bare. I expected there to be more people, especially since only 2 of these women have had their account longer than a day (and one of those is the website admin, who is a woman).
I'm not sure how serious these last 7 are. The admin says she's not interesting in meeting people. So that leaves 6 others. The oldest among us says she's glad the website exists so she can meet people with similar interests without fear of "other people". She's 22, White and Mormon. I'm not sure why she needs this site, maybe Salt Lake City has descended into a minority hellhole. I haven't visited the city in a few months so it's possible. The other 5 include a random white woman with nothing aside from a picture in her profile. Someone without a profile pic. A black woman looking for a white man because she feels closer to white culture. A woman with only a local "Black Lives Matter" protest pic (it looks like it was taken in SLC. I do believe I recognize the building.) and the last woman is Eva Braun. I guess she and Hitler broke up and she's looking for a rebound.
That's all there is to the site. Judging by the admin's profile, it's been online for at least 4 months and 3 weeks. Half a year and the site looks and feels like it launched yesterday. I can't really recommend anyone sign up for this site. Between the fakes, trolls and handful of real people, your chances of actually going out on a date with anyone is almost 0. Though, if you ever want to know what dating in Utah is like for a non-white person like me, sign up and try getting a date. :P
