Commercials Are Flowers

I knew there was something going on with that old guy on those ads! I totally get the creepy / cultey vibe every time I see him.

Oh, babycakes... If you had just asked, I could've told you all dem eharmonizers were what you discovered. I actually found Match.com to be very interesting because a few years ago they had a test online that purported to tell you your "type(s)" and even how choosy you were. And it was offered for unheterosexuals, too. (Oh, and I'm wicked choosy)

I totally know what you mean. I had posted about this in my blog's earlier days. I also noticed the inability to select same-sex seeking. I'm not gay, but I thought that was kind of fishy.

What also got my goat was that I got only FIVE matches, all of which were "Pacific Islander." I don't recall ever filling out anything in their questionnaire-a-thon anything that says "I only want to date people of my own race."

So not only is there a homophobic element to eHarmony, but a racist one as well.

What "agendahhh" is eHarmony catering to by not providing services to people who have been previously married more than 3 times? Or not taking money from depressed people?

I'm sorry, I know that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that someone ISN'T out to get you... but I just haven't noticed the "Religious Right" refusing to associated with the depressed or serial-spouse types. In fact, isn't that sort of the bread-and-butter demographic for televangilists? Sucking in people who are sad, lonely, and have a track record of bad marriage would seem very consistent with both modern born-again Christianity AND online dating services.

So eHarmony has a stated goal of only providing services to people for whom their scientific evidence says it will WORK.. and that doesn't include gays, depressives and the multiple-failed marriages clique. How does this fit into a Christian Conservative Global Conspiracy agenda?

Just curious.

Actually, the copy of eHarmony's ads makes blanket statements about the universality of soul mates, yet excludes specific groups.

They did their own research into heterosexual couplings. They could do the same for homosexual couplings as well.

eHarmony's stated goal in their ads is finding people their soulmates, not finding heterosexuals who are not depressed and not having had failed relationships in the past. In fact, as far as failed relationships go, eHarmony's stated goal is that their method of providing hookups is superior to other forms, IMPLYING that those with failed relationships would be the IDEAL people to pay eHarmony for its services.

As far as agenda? They're a company out to make money. By eliminating those who are more likely to fail in relationships, they're stacking the results deck so that they end up looking more successful in hooking people up than if they included depressed people and those who have had multiple marriages.

What is your motivation in supporting eHarmony? What's your agenda?

Ahh.. last question first, my "agenda" is to understand what exactly you want us to be mad about.

I don't think you can differentiate eHarmony from Match.com, or manhunt.net, adam4adam.com and gay.com for that matter, by saying they're "out to make money." Online dating sites are ALL out to make money... even the free ones like Plenty of Fish which make their revenue off of ad placements.

I don't think choosing to sell your product only to people for whom your product will work in order to make your product look better really qualifies as "an agenda" either. It may be "stacking the deck" as you say, but it is also exactly what eHarmony.com is saying they are doing: Not providing service for those they don't think it will work for.

Actually, maybe I'm just reading too much into your use of the word "agenda." For most of us, an "agenda" is a hidden or obscured purpose or goal. For example, Wiliam Hearst blaming the Spanish for blowing up the Maine in his newspapers in order to start a war in order to sell more newspapers, THAT was an "agenda."

A company trying to make money and only selling its services where they will work? Sounds more like a rational business model.

I disagree. They sell it as a universal soul-mate matching service. Gay.com doesn't make any pretense to be anything other than what is: meant for gay people.

eHarmony implies universals in their ads. That's the problem I have with eHarmony's ads.

Digging deeper, do you think it's any coincidence that they're perfectly aligned with Christian Right Propaganda? I don't.

It's a cop-out to claim that they don't match homosexuals because they have no data. They could get the data, just like they did for heterosexuals. They could be clearer about the intended audience.

Certain industries' advertising is regulated. Medication commercials must provide info about side effects and limits. Food ads cannot make false or misleading claims about what's in the food.

Chemistry.com, on the other hand, seems to follow through in ways that their ads claim. eHarmony.com does not.

Every time I see those ads, I keep thinking about that movie "The Parallax View" where personality tests on the back pages of alt-weeklies were being used to recruit assassins, sociopaths, and murderers for shadowy conspiracies.

I know someone that actually got past the gatekeepers at EHarmony and they said it was a load of crap. Who knows, maybe they ARE using the internets for 1920s style eugenics over there?

Check out the interview with Neil Clark Warren on Fresh Air: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4803877
He does a fine job dodging Terry Gross' questions re: the hetero-centric nature of the service. It's amusing to hear him squawk-gay relationships are different! gay relationships are different!

Acutally, they turn people away after four marriages, not two. So before you start bashing people, maybe you should get your facts straight.

So Gay.com can offer services exclusively for Gays, but eHarmony can't offer services exclusively for breeders because.... of their advertising? Their name?

If they called it "StraightHarmony.com" and said in their ads "If your straight, and looking for your soul-mate, we can help." would that really make a difference?

Ultimately, your outrage (or umbrage, if outrage is too strong a word) about eHarmony being associated with the Christian Right has a much stronger logical foundation.

What would your reaction be, however, if they DID announce a new, research-based product for matching Gays? Would you trust it? Would you TRY it?

FYI: I was looking on Wikipedia. It looks like eHarmony HAS presented research on their effectiveness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eharmony.com#Compatibility_research). I can't find anything similar for Chemistry.com, although their founder has a compatibility test in this months Oprah magazine!

Curious, gay.com doesn't pretend to be allsexualorientations.com. There's nothing false or misleading about what gay.com is about.

You're missing the point: their attempts to make "relationships" exclusive to opposite-sex couples, along with their stacking-the-deck so they can inflate their own "success" rates aligns them perfectly with the political agenda of Focus of the Family, an organization run by a man with whom Warren has had affiliation.

I already pointed out that i don't believe that personality-matching is a worthwhile way to predict a successful relationship, so no, I wouldn't use their service. I also don't plan to use chemistry.com.

Beatrice, where do YOU get the number of marriages before eHarmony will kick you to the curb? Their website makes no mention anywhere of who they won't accept. I didn't double check my reference to the number of previous marriages, but I did find one interview that makes the claim: article

Back to Curious: They can cater strictly to heterosexuals all they want. I have no issue with that, just as I have no issue with gay.com catering to gay people. It's about misleading claims, and serving hidden political agendas that I have a problem with. Or didn't you get that from reading the entry and my comments already?

Just for the record, curious, why did you give a false email address?

if you can't trust me not to post your email address, why do you trust me not to alter your comments to suit my purposes? For the record, I never edit people's comments, but i do, on rare occasion, completely delete a comment if they post libelous things or claim illegal activities of others without corroboration.

Do you have a problem with that?

I thought match.com worked pretty well. Or at least I got dates out of it. And they have this fun physical type match exercise that plays like a good game of whack-a-mole.

FYI, 'curious', Gay,com does not discriminate by orientation. Any heterosexual person is free to go there and make a profile; when you fill it out there is an option for "straight" under orientation and a drop-down option for men seeking women and vice-versa. The fact that few-to-no hets actually use it because of the title of the site isn't a matter of discrimination. The service that gay.com offers cannot in any way be compared to a national ad campaign for a service designed by a known Christian fundamentalist who actively prohibits homosexuals.