BY Lux Alptraum
May 14, 2008
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2 Comments

Some of you have given us shit in the past for referring to OkCupid as an unpersonal. After all, it’s a dating site, right? Doesn’t that, by definition, make it a personal?

Nope! And here is why: personals are pay sites specifically focused on dating (and, uh, mating). Unpersonals are free sites which — in addition to being about dating — lure users in with some non-dating related activity.

To put it bluntly: OkCupid is an unpersonal because it has those quizzes and journals and stuff.

Still don’t believe us? Take it from OkCupid founder Sam Yagan (interviewed here by Bonnie Ruberg):

A lot of other dating sites, they force you to have this moment of Zen when you look at your credit card and you say to yourself, “I am an online dater.” For women there’s that anxiety like, “Do I really have to pay to get a date? We offer a free site that’s not just about dating, so women think, “Sure, I’ll give it a try.”

Case closed.