“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/01/22/i-paid-25-for-an-invisible-boyfriend-and-i-think-i-might-be-in-love/

by pratiksaha • 12 years ago

389 254 12 years ago

washingtonpost.com

xianshou• 12 years ago

A perfect application of the Forer effect: humans have an amazing ability to interpret what can apply to anyone as having special significance for themselves.

It's the same reason why horoscopes and fortune cookies work. Stepping back and thinking logically, it's easy to see why their messages might apply to a lot of people. But when you're reading one, you can't help but think, "Ah! It says that I would encounter adversity at work this week, but overcome it! I knew that presentation wasn't the end of the world." And if you're a little lonely or down and need emotional rapport, you can't help but feel a little spark of excitement and connection when that Mechanical Turker claims to like your favorite TV show - especially because the text messages from the fake partner look just like they would from a real one.

No matter how deeply we trust our logical conclusions, our emotional response remains the same. We can't help but feel worthier when we're being praised (even by computers - see the Silicon Sycophants study: http://pdf.aminer.org/000/307/350/information_requirements_a...), hurt when we're being insulted, and connected when we're being connected with.

nodata2• 12 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect

aidos• 12 years ago

As James Randi (the ultimate Skeptic) demonstrates here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw

krat0sprakhar• 12 years ago

Learnt something new on HN today! Thanks a lot for your comment.

loceng• 12 years ago

There's a fine line (maybe not so fine) as to when something becomes manipulation IMHO - though if someone's paying $25 monthly for someone(s) to chat with to feel connected then I suppose they've applied an added bias or value; makes me feel a bit sad if the people aren't doing it just for fun.

tormeh• 12 years ago

People are doing sadder things than this to keep the emotional lights on. At least it's cheaper than prostitutes.

You know the saddest first-world thing I've ever heard? A prostitute doing a reddit AMA had a client once that wanted her to sing "happy birthday" for him. It was his birthday and no one else was going to.

SloopJon2• 12 years ago

No matter how deeply we trust our logical conclusions, our emotional response remains the same. We can't help but feel worthier when we're being praised (even by computers ...), hurt when we're being insulted, and connected when we're being connected with.

I just started playing The Walking Dead. In one scene, after another character saved Clementine from a zombie before I could, the game said, "Clementine remembers that you didn't save her." A very different feeling than failing and having to replay from a checkpoint.

IgorPartola3• 12 years ago

Video games have always been very interesting this way to me, and there are some real gems lately that manage to tap into very emotional parts of my brain. Fallout is ripe with ethical dilemmas, almost to the point where I found myself unable to proceed when the choice is not obvious. You know the characters are not real, you are alone playing a single-player game; but you can't help but try to figure out how to help the character. The Fable series is really great this way too. There it's actually the focus and the theme of the game.

crshults• 12 years ago

I remember having that same feeling playing Road Rash after attacking Natasha during a race.

BrianEatWorld• 12 years ago

You should try "Wolf Among Us" as well. It was amazing how that game tricked my normally passive personality into acting out in anger, chasing down leads for revenge instead of justice and then feeling like the monster I had become. By the end, I felt redeemed, but still vulnerable because my weaknesses had been exposed. All of that and I played the entire thing on nothing more than a tiny PS Vita screen.

TeMPOraL3• 12 years ago

I had a lot of similar feelings with Mass Effect series. In this game all the decisions you make permanently reshape the game world, which carries through the first game to second and third. Major and minor characters in the last game may be missing or doing different things based on your actions in the first game. While playing I felt the impact of my steps in even tiny details.

This, + general storyline and execution of the product made it the first game I found myself to be really involved emotionally with. Say, when I picked up the second game and met an important NPC from the first, I literally felt like I've just rejoined with an old friend. By the third game I actually printed out a photo of my character and her entire team. It's crazy how deep a good video game can touch you.

Oh, and I spent 10-15 minutes thinking heavily about morality and consequences just to choose the right ending...

jusben1369• 12 years ago

When I was young I picked up a book at a friend's house on astrology. I am a Taurus. I mistakenly opened it on another sign thinking I was reading the chapter on what made up a Taurus character. I was reading and nodding my head "wow, this is kind of weird. That is me. I do that. Well, I'm not like that but it's not going to be a 100% fit" After several pages I realized my mistake. And then I realized the Forer effect without knowing what it was or that it had a name.

UrMomReadsHN5• 12 years ago

Julia Sweeney on astrology - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjturKoFsg

(The background is she just found out she was actually born 3 months after her parents told her she was born - they lied to get her to start school a year earlier.)

sharkweek• 12 years ago

Same thing with the "crossing over" folks who claim to talk to dead relatives right?

"You had a family member who passed recently right? Or someone really close to you"

"Yes, yes! My aunt passed away earlier this year!"

"Ah, yes! And... and... she was sick right? Or in pain close to her death?"

"Wow, yes!!"

"You were close with her, or you were close with her family right?"

...etc

Karunamon3• 12 years ago

That theory kind of breaks down when they get into specifics about military service, clothing, scars, etc. Things that a cold reader wouldn't have any access to.

abandonliberty• 12 years ago

Very interesting, but the article mentions they're using amazon turk - "real" people. Probably.

Pinn2• 12 years ago

Except for you, right? People like to feel better about themselves by declaring defects in everyone else but themselves. Even me.

crpatino• 12 years ago

It's the same reason why horoscopes and fortune cookies work.

A more charitable interpretation of horoscopes and fortune cookies could be that, given that human behavior and problems falls into recognizable patterns, generic solutions can be offered as a sort of framework or scaffold for the received to fill in their particular details and get started with a more appropriate and personal solution.

What else did you expected? from a little something that came inside of a cookie!!!

bad_user• 12 years ago

This drive to reduce humanity to a set of chemical reactions and evolutionary traits is misplaced, because nothing makes less amazing our ability to love just about anything. And we should celebrate that, instead of being condescending about it, because you know, life would be very boring and unfulfilling without feelings.

acdha4• 12 years ago

Understanding how something works does not preclude enjoyment or wonder. Richard Feynman rather famously observed that understanding more of the science can deepen your appreciation:

http://zenpencils.com/comic/137-richard-feynman-the-beauty-o...

inglesp• 12 years ago

Is this a "Black Mirror moment"?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/31/7471901/i-cant-stop-compa...

bigtunacan• 12 years ago

Yeah, this made me think of a first step towards "Be Right Back"

nodata2• 12 years ago

I see an additional service waiting to be sold.

smoyer2• 12 years ago

A virtual counsellor? Psychiatrist?

Does this represent a messed up person or a messed up culture?

MasterScrat2• 12 years ago

Probably he meant an actual "partner", meaning tricking yourself on purpose to a certain degree.

Even if you are talking to multiple people you could imagine keeping tracks of your key facts and interests, maybe use data mining from actual conversations to auto-suggest answers, automatically check out your social medias etc.

siscia4• 12 years ago

I found it so wrong...

Sentiments are real, I don't think anybody should play with other person feeling...

Of course the user signed up, and they think that this is what they want, but I honestly believe that nobody want to risk to fail in love for a nobody...

pizza234• 12 years ago

The concepts involved in the article are confusing attraction with love.

Independently of how arbitrary attraction and love are, there's certainly a difference between them, depth being the divider.

With this in mind, the "falling in love" the author is talking about, which may also apply to the crowds using such service, is the equivalent of a teenager "falling in love" with, say, Tom Cruise.

Although of course, services like this pose a "risk" of falling in such state, there's nothing really "wrong" (in the "damaging" sense of the term) with it.

hobs• 12 years ago

I don't even think it is attraction, just a person (like most) who craves additional acknowledgement and attention because it is a powerful feeling.

I have seen people go out craving attention and not being satisfied until they have gotten a hit from someone.

To me it is the same impulse that has people meticulously manage a facebook profile so they can get kudos from practical strangers.

siscia4• 12 years ago

Are you sure about that ? How ?

The author seems old enough to be able to distinguish love and attraction...

I believe that different people have different emotion, keep texting with somebody can be extremely powerful can go a loooong way...

pherocity_3• 12 years ago

"and they think that this is what they want, but I honestly believe that nobody want to risk to fail in love for a nobody..."

Wow, that's a whole lot of bullshit right there. That kind of thinking is why we have religion and politics. Men thinking they know what is best for everyone else.

siscia4• 12 years ago

Sorry, as you can see that is just what I believe.

Of course I don't force anybody, it is just my opinion, I believe that I have the right to have an opinion...

Anyway, I would like to suggest you to use a language a little more cordial.

comboy2• 12 years ago

Reminded me of "The Entire History of You" from Black Mirror[1] tv series (I really don't feel like calling it that way, it's more like a separate movies). I highly recommend it.

I wonder how long it takes before those lower(st) paid jobs for those that are not specialized in anything will be in something like mechanical turk. Especially in this example it's visible that those can sometimes require somewhat local workers, so they may spread outside countries with lowest cost of living.

beaumartinez• 12 years ago

Funny, it reminded me more of the episode "Be Right Back".

comboy2• 12 years ago

Oh, right! Sorry I didn't remember the title and checked wrong.

smoyer2• 12 years ago

I find it sad that she needs an invisible boyfriend ... her friends and family shouldn't be pressuring her and if she's got someone harassing her, will showing him a text really stop it?

Both these scenarios assume she's happy without a BF but the fact that she describes feeling that she might have fallen in love could also mean she actually wants a boyfriend but can't find one. Things are tougher on women these days (http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/02/sex_i...).

werid• 12 years ago

She doesn't need an invisible boyfriend. She's testing it for the article.

In one of her texts to "Ryan" she writes: "Ha, you're better than my real bf".

Kurtz792• 12 years ago

It's sad there are people for which having an invisible boyfriend/girlfriend is an appealing idea (which is the entire premise of the service), regardless if it's the case with the writer of the article.

"On its Web site, Invisible Boyfriend calls itself “believable social proof”: When your mom won’t stop asking you when you’re going to settle down, or your weird male acquaintance keeps hitting on you, you can just whip out your phone and show them evidence that you’re not an unlovable loser, thank you very much. Homann says the service has also seen a surge in interest from people in conservative countries, particularly in South America and Europe, where the stigmas against being single or LGBT remain pretty strong."

I find the whole premise depressing.

Be proud of what you are or, if you are unhappy with your situation, take meaningful action to address the problem.

unlogic• 12 years ago

I wonder how OK it is in their relationship to say things like that. That's obviously a joke, but it still comes quite bitter when such phrases are then revealed to general public.

brador• 12 years ago

It's surprising how many people are dateable once you remove looks from the equation.

CapitalistCartr• 12 years ago

For most people, looks ARE part of the equation. It's like removing Pi from an equation. I wonder what's going to happen when science makes looks whatever we want, like hair color.

gadders• 12 years ago

Two people that have had surgery to look beautiful are going to marry, fall in love and start a family. And then be really surprised when their baby comes out fugly.

lmm2• 12 years ago

For most people, looks ARE part of the equation. It's like removing Pi from an equation.

Did you read that OKCupid piece on when they turned off profile pictures for a day? Supposedly the result was better for their users - people who went on these "truly blind dates" had significantly better odds of a successful relationship coming out of it than the site average. Looks do matter, but the way we encounter each other via technology is artificial and superficial. I wonder if there would be a market for a text-only matching app.

alashley• 12 years ago

Agreed, I think there are two things at play when (some) people say looks don't matter. 1) It's a holier-than-thou attitude where they are trying to come off as non-superficial like everyone else. And 2) They believe that there is some universal definition of beauty, which there is no such thing. But mainstream media would have us believe otherwise. Everyone finds who they are attracted to "beautiful."

pavedwalden• 12 years ago

Ted Chiang's story "Liking what you see" speculates about what it would be like if science messed with the other side of the equation. How would we relate to other people if we silenced the part or our brain that recognized physical beauty? (shadysite transcript of story: http://www.ibooksonline.com/88/Text/liking.html)

graup2• 12 years ago

Reminds me of the movie "Her" about an invisible AI girlfriend. Worth watching!

bshimmin• 12 years ago

It reminded me of that too, since I read the article to the end.

graup2• 12 years ago

Thanks for pointing that out. TL;DR I guess.

pbhjpbhj3• 12 years ago

Ha, reading the comments it reminded me of Her too and I was wondering why no-one was mentioning the similarity.

drcomputer• 12 years ago

People used to look at me weird when I explained how I was paranoid that someone was routing all of my conversations between multiple people, in an effort to cluster intelligence and intellectual contributions without any participant knowing what they were contributing to.

Take that, therapy. Yes, the paranoia was somewhat imaginative, but it was an exaggeration of something that actually can be mechanized. The people I explained this to didn't believe me that you could create chat streams this way.

ionwake• 12 years ago

That is an interesting fear

hluska• 12 years ago

I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but I sure hope that you got to deal with that fear with a professional. That would be a difficult way to live...

Sorry that you had to go through that!

MasterScrat2• 12 years ago

Interesting. I've always been interested in building such a system.

kefka• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, it was already built. And what came out of it was Anonymous.

Ever hear of 4Chan?

technofiend• 12 years ago

I think everyone has those thoughts to a certain degree: however I'm not dismissing yours as common or trying to minimize them in any way.

You might enjoy this stack-exchange article on Robert A. Heinlien's "They" - http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/49224/short-story-w...

taki• 12 years ago

Reading this all I can think of are the "ractors" in Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age).

Vaskivo2• 12 years ago

I'm reading and loving that book.

Of all the technological wonders of the setting, "ractors" are what amazed me the most. It's the perfect interactive experience, a full-time "Wizard of Oz"[0].

Maybe we can see something of the kind in the following year with the advancement of VR thechnology..

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Oz_experiment

ashark• 12 years ago

The first third or so of the Diamond Age is one of my favorite things I've ever read. It's full of great ideas.

saiya-jin• 12 years ago

all I see is a fear (of being alone, whatever might be the reason) and weakness (to face reality, to stand to annoying people around etc.). You wanna be alone? So be, and be proud of it, no small lies all around you. Or way more realistically, you wanna partner? Well get the hell out of your stupid phone and meet real people. It ain't easy, but nothing really important in life is...

andyhmltn• 12 years ago

I would suggest reading the article instead of just the title before responding

Ocamen• 12 years ago

"The man on the other end isn’t imaginary. He’s a real human person"

And a real hero? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSVDcw6iW8

Kenji2• 12 years ago

With some effort, you could get a visible boyfriend for 0$. But yeah, it's hard to overcome laziness.

iopq6• 12 years ago

Are you crazy? That would be risking rejection.

p4bl0• 12 years ago

Reading the article would have provided you with a real-world use case:

Homann says the service has also seen a surge in interest from people in conservative countries, particularly in South America and Europe, where the stigmas against being single or LGBT remain pretty strong.

It is very very sad but I can imagine that in some place it may be worth spending a few bucks a month to be able to show conservatives co-workers/parents/whatever that you have a regular boyfriend (for girls) or girlfriend (for guys), and live your private life as you wish.

railsdude• 12 years ago

For some people that would be a lot of effort, since the only value they can bring into relationships is their genitalia.

UrMomReadsHN5• 12 years ago

Laziness? If you just enter a relationship just for the sake of having a relationship thats not fair to the other person involved. (Source: been the "other person.")

Kenji2• 12 years ago

A proper relationship needs effort. Even if all the feelings are involved. The hurdle to start one is especially high, you have to go out there, open yourself up and prepare to get hurt. Now, of course you can say this is a very cold and unromantic way to look at it. It is, yes, but I'm not on HN to romanticise. I'm sorry to hear what happened to you.

edpichler• 12 years ago

This article remembered me again that Psychology is something really interesting. No matter how strange all of this can appear to us looking from an outside view, this is how our brain works. If you know how psychology works you are able to create new business around of it. After reading it I wonder about how much, strange or not, psychology demands people have.

Mawaai• 12 years ago

Lets call it BaaS. Boyfriend As A Service.

mithras• 12 years ago

Funny enough baas means boss in Dutch.

kanamekun• 12 years ago

Love it! Although GaaS doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

brandnewlow• 12 years ago

IaaS: Intimacy as a Service.

flatline• 12 years ago

Ryan, or Susan? I like that Ryan is a composite of many Turkers, but don't see why he should be played only by men. In fact I bet women would be better overall at text-flirting with other women.

lrei2• 12 years ago

I wonder why they have the silly 2 + 3 = ? thing in their form at the bottom of the homepage.

It's text/html, so it can't be anti-bot and seems like pointless for a human... Does anyone else know the logic behind that?

taejo• 12 years ago

It's anti-bot. It doesn't prevent bots targeting that page, but those don't exist.

CyberShadow• 12 years ago

I don't see the field you're referring to, but I'll try to answer with a best guess anyway.

Most web spam bots fall into two categories:

1. They target a certain web software package (such as WordPress), for which they know the HTML layout and the range of possible CAPTCHA challenges.

2. They try to fill out every HTML form they find blindly, using heuristics based on the names of form input elements.

To defeat both, all you need to do is to write a custom HTML form by hand (which defeats category 1), and add a simple CAPTCHA challenge (which defeats category 2).

lrei2• 12 years ago

Thanks. But that challenge is so trivial to defeat by simple pattern matching with zero cost that the cost of adding code to a bot to break this type of challenge seems negligible.

PS: it's a the bottom of the landing page (not signup)

nissimk• 12 years ago

This article was great. I especially liked:

   “Oh my God,” I thought. “This total stranger, whoever he or she is, thinks I cry myself to sleep while watching public television and texting a paid fake boyfriend I named after an actor.”

To all you folks saying this is really sad, or wrong, this is a novelty. It's like the digital equivalent of a gag gift. It's a great conversation starter and really very funny.

falcolas• 12 years ago

This makes for an interesting thought experiment, particularly when you compare and contrast it with the concept of the "waifu" (loosely, an animated character from Anime or videogames people associate as being their significant other).

One is a coping mechanism for handing external pressures, the other internal. I wonder how healthy either can be in the long run.

return0• 12 years ago

Not surprised that it works, it looks like something fun to do on both sides. In fact, i believe people who love romance would sign up for a free service like this on both ends. (Since their niche is people who dont want to have the actual relationships, they could easily pair up their users with each other as pure conversation partners).

The sad thing is the reason that this app exists. Has it become so taboo to be single that you have to pay to hide it?

dreamweapon• 12 years ago

Has it become so taboo to be single that you have to pay to hide it?

Apparently yes, sadly.

Even so, I can't imagine this app could possible be worth the time (let alone the cost). Especially when simply lying to people (who aren't close friends anyway), as needed -- or in the case of a good chunk of my direct family, explicitly firewalling ("Look, over the years I've been having various relationships with various people. If any of them become important enough for you to know about, I'll let you know, eventually") to be easy enough, and to work perfectly fine for all concerned.

The bottom line is that intimacy is a gift, and at no point are you obligated to provide it to anyone you don't really consider to be that important in your life -- or in situations that make you uncomfortable.

tinkerrr• 12 years ago

Even so, I can't imagine this app could possible be worth the time

I think that's why the founder is talking of expanding the service already, such as getting flowers on Valentine's, say. It might provide social worth to some, who see this extravaganza displayed on every other desk at their work.

ctdonath• 12 years ago

The really sad thing is that by using something (like this) to veil singleness, one cuts off any genuine interest from a genuine person. Few will initiate a date with someone texting their (unbenownst virtual) "significant other".

iopq6• 12 years ago

She doesn't want the unattractive guys to hit on her, so she texts her fake significant other. The fantasy of an attractive guy being her boyfriend is better than a real boyfriend being just a regular guy.

dsuth2• 12 years ago

Thats really not how dating works, at all. Competition spurs attraction, not the other way around.

pavel_lishin3• 12 years ago

one cuts off any genuine interest from a genuine person

Maybe that's the point. Maybe the users of this service are trying to focus on school or work, and are tired of friends and family trying to set them up with significant others.

lmm2• 12 years ago

Years ago I worked in the messaging industry. We had an "adult chat" platform in the UK, and to our surprise a lot of the messages looked to be lonely people rather than after something sexual - even had one client wanting to use it in the US, where the phone networks only let you run "non-adult" services, but they reckoned there was enough of a market. (Don't remember what actually happened in the end.)

The trouble is that you need human moderators to prevent trolling/harassment/etc. - and if you're going to pay humans to read every message, you may as well have them write them as well.

The sad thing is the reason that this app exists. Has it become so taboo to be single that you have to pay to hide it?

Article mentions more traditional cultures, and semi-closeted gays. I think singledom is becoming much more acceptable to our generation than it ever was before - but it doesn't play so well with our parents.

vacri2• 12 years ago

Has it become so taboo to be single that you have to pay to hide it?

It is less taboo now than it has been for many generations (for anglos, at least). Being labelled a 'spinster' or a 'maiden aunt' was a stigma.

Red_Tarsius• 12 years ago

I think it's not as much about social proof as it is about feeling protected and cared for. The marketing strategy ("social proof" over "feeling lonely") let the users benefit from the service without feeling shame: loneliness is unfortunately still considered some kind of stigma.

Invisible Boyfriend might be the polar opposite and complement of prostitution: the first simulating the love between a protector and his protégé, the second providing a sex partner. I'm not implying any moral fault, but it's fascinating nonetheless.

SG-• 12 years ago

Basically virtual escorting as a service (not all escorting is sex, some of it is just companionship). For now there's no sex involved but with how easy it is to connect people nearby you could easily see this type of service expand in markets where it's legal.

I could see nude selfies being sent too down the road (again a different service, not exactly this one).

jacquesm• 12 years ago

I could see nude selfies being sent too down the road (again a different service, not exactly this one).

That's called instagram.

mod• 12 years ago

Uhh no, it's called snapchat.

drzaiusapelord3• 12 years ago

>“That rapport you feel with Ryan may actually be six or seven Ryans,” Homann explains.

Or Rhondas. Women know what women want from a fake boyfriend service. What subterfuge is needed to fool the parents, what parents expect, etc. The text exchange about Downton Abbey makes me suspect that their staff are, at least partly, female.

dsuth2• 12 years ago

Women and men have distinctly different energies, even over text-based mediums. While this wouldn't necessarily stop them from doing this, it's not how I'd design the service.

IgorPartola3• 12 years ago

This really reminds of the 30 Rock episode about porn for women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGcRz9jJJCU

Edit: before anyone questions it, I am not saying that in any derogatory manner. Just a similar concept in a way, though obviously this has very different value proposition.

zaroth• 12 years ago

5000 users signed up in a day and it's $25 for 100 text messages in a month. That's bank.

shiftpgdn• 12 years ago

Understatement of the century here. That's 1.5MM USD in annual reoccurring revenue made in a day. Currently companies are being valuated at as much as 10x ARR. That's a 15MM USD company risen from the ground in 24 hours.

biot• 12 years ago

Depends on the definition of "signed up". 99% of them may have signed up for the free 10 text message trial. Without knowing the conversion from signup to paid, retention rates, and so on it could be either wildly profitable or losing money.

gambiter• 12 years ago

$25/month for 100 texts? Talk about easy money... I need to start a company.

chucksmart• 12 years ago

Attached to a text message? WTF (Recursive).

shirro• 12 years ago

Pity it is wasted on sham romance. If something like this took the form of a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer it might be interesting.

Raphmedia3• 12 years ago

Invisible Girlfriend Monthly Subscription: $24.99/month

100 texts 10 voicemails 1 postcard

...

I think 100 texts is a bit low for $24.99/month. The postcard option is very nice, so are the voice mails however.

But how do the voice mails work? Will it be the same voice every time?

kazagistar• 12 years ago

25 cents for a "culturally and emotionally attuned" response seems fairly reasonable to me. It comes out to something like 100 seconds per response just to match minimum US wage.

Raphmedia3• 12 years ago

It's good for long messages. However, I could see someone go through the 100 SMS very quickly in a "conversation" where the imaginary person has to answer a bunch of short texts like "yes", "and you", etc.

I've tried the free trial, which is 10 SMS and went through them in half an hour or so (and that's because they don't reply very quickly). Haven't even got to the parts that I customized, I was still at "Hello there, how are you!", "Did you have a great day?" "Oh, and your?".

That's 4 SMS a day or so. At this point, I would simply use a chatbot, since they are fine with the basic conversations that I would manage to get to in 4 sms.

I guess you could have two 50 SMS conversations a month, but even then, good luck fooling someone into thinking this is your real lover.

The only plus I can see is that you can have someone tell you "Alright, if she is really your girlfriend, ask her something only your close friends know about you" and "she" would manage to answer.

Not very convinced about the service.

m4tthumphrey• 12 years ago

What happens when mum want's to meet him/her?

stephancoral• 12 years ago

That's where my new service, visibleboyfriend.io, comes in. We lease premium models, in both male and female forms, to accompany you to business meetings, family dinners, government functions et cetera. Our models have all been vetted as being 'significantly more attractive than anyone you could probably hope to date' by an independent council of data scientists and casting agency magnates. We also train our models to be conversant in various worldly topics, ranging from literature (Byron is especially popular these days) to art history to economics and politics. Email me for more details and to sign up for our beta: steve@visibleboyfriend.io

kevlee• 12 years ago

Should have committed to the bit and registered that domain.

sukilot• 12 years ago

This is already a thing. It is huge in China to rent white "American business partners"

CitizenKane• 12 years ago

Funny to see this here. My business partner did the design and I'm friends with the team.

I can't say that I feel much for the business, but I've been continually impressed by its ability to generate press. People _love_ talking about and debating this concept, and I can't say that I've been completely free from it.

That being said, this is currently probably the most covered startup from Saint Louis. While it is nice to see a startup from this ecosystem getting this amount of press attention, it's disappointing at the same time. I know a lot of people working on very ambitious and difficult problems that would kill for a tenth of the amount of attention that Invisible Boyfriend and Invisible Girlfriend get.

briholt2• 12 years ago

I just learned about this today. This is the greatest marketing concept since "million dollar homepage." My life is a failure for not having thought of this.

justathrow2k3• 12 years ago

By greatest marketing concept you mean a quick and easy way to make money, yeah? I wouldn't be so hard on yourself for not having thought of it. Personally, I believe humanity would be at a net gain had no one thought of or executed on this idea.

discardorama5• 12 years ago

My life is a failure for not having thought of this.

Actually, I did think of this, many times. But my biggest bottleneck was: how will I scale up the replies? I could handle being a "boyfriend" for, say, 10 women. But any bigger, and I'd need help. I considered MTurk, but thought that quality control would be an issue. (What if the MTurk guy really starts hitting on the woman, they exchange numbers and then he starts stalking her?). Anyways: after considering all the messiness, I gave it a pass.

at-fates-hands• 12 years ago

I'm sure we all think about stuff like this, then reject it out of hand as if anybody would want/need something like this.

Press is good, profits are better. I'll be interested to see where this is in six months.

swamp40• 12 years ago

The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. ~ Ecclesiastes 1:9

George Glass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2egRZia504

mhomde• 12 years ago

Reminds me of the autistic kid whose only friend is Siri

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-j-cameron-phd-bcbad/an...

LeoPanthera• 12 years ago

I love that story. His friendship with Siri is more genuine than the relationship offered by this service - if one-sided.

discardorama5• 12 years ago

For $25/month, I wonder how the economics of this work out.

Say they pay $0.05/text (to the MTurker). In about 500 texts, the budget will be used up. That's about 15 texts/day; that's not a lot for today.

Jtsummers• 12 years ago

That plan included 100 texts per month (last paragraph of the article).

discardorama5• 12 years ago

Dammit, I somehow missed that.

dorfsmay2• 12 years ago

I try to explain this the first time I took a Myers-Briggs.

"You're an INTG. Get together with other INTGs, read the descriptions... See, isn't this you?"

wtbob• 12 years ago

I will say, that as much as Myers-Briggs exploits the Forer Effect, that I did notice a few trends, e.g. that I cannot stand folks in one particular group (and no doubt they cannot stand me, either!). And it did seem fairly good at distinguishing extroverts from introverts (assuming arguendo that such a distinction is meaningful).

dorfsmay2• 12 years ago

Most personality classifications have some bases and some value, but this particular exercise really turned me off.

I'm ok with saying "this is an attempt at classification, it's an extra data point", but I'm not ok with resorting to scammy techniques, if anything it tells me that the classification can't stand on its own and has therefore very little value.

mparramon• 12 years ago

Discussion on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/2teai9/i_paid_25...

captain_crabs• 12 years ago

This is so cool...I built a large part of this, and now it's everywhere!!

ergl• 12 years ago

I wonder what would happen if you signed up for a boyfriend and a girlfriend and had them talk to each other

sciguy77• 12 years ago

Ah now that would be interesting. It seems like in the examples provided the virtual SO is reactive, responding to what the user says (ex "I like Downton Abby") whereas when they reach out the messages are generic. I wonder if the conversation would generate its own 'depth'.

This seems to be a worthwhile experiment to me.

Torgo3• 12 years ago

So uh, there are attractive girls on Fiverr that will pretend to be your girlfriend on Facebook for a month (friending, n posts/likes on your posts per month, etc) for five dollars. I paid two of them to "fight" over me just to troll my friends. It turns out this piques interest in other women :-P

This is why I don't use my real name on HN.

justathrow2k3• 12 years ago

This is why I don't use my real name on HN.

Because you don't want the people in your life knowing that you pay money to manipulate and deceive those around you? Seems smart to keep that a secret.

JDiculous• 12 years ago

That's pretty genius actually. Women definitely tend to be more interested in men who are being sought after by other women.

beachstartup2• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory

wglb• 12 years ago

Interesting idea.

Or hook up eliza on your end and see what happens.

jeena• 12 years ago

the service has also seen a surge in interest from people in conservative countries, particularly in South America and Europe, where the stigmas against being single or LGBT remain pretty strong.

Uhm this is odd, I don't know about South America but Europe? Here in Sweden LGBT people are even allowed to marry in church before their god http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/10/22/Church-...

UrMomReadsHN5• 12 years ago

Europe is more diverse than people make it out to be. Plenty of European countries are very hostile to gays....

meej• 12 years ago

I think the key phrase in that sentence is "conservative countries". Much of Eastern Europe still doesn't permit gay marriage, for example. Here's a good map: http://www.freedomtomarry.org/landscape/entry/c/internationa...

Bmneilson• 12 years ago

Perfect example of ProductHunt traffic..

oldgun• 12 years ago

Gee. Thought this might only happen in a 'Black Mirror' episode.

Animats• 12 years ago

Virtual girlfriends have been popular in Japan for years. Love Plus (2009) for the Nintendo DS was the first to catch on. There are now many others. Some text and send you pictures of what they're doing. You can send your virtual girlfriend presents on-line, which costs real money.

Now in beta, an Oculus Rift virtual girlfriend.

ChrisClark• 12 years ago

You can send your virtual girlfriend presents on-line, which costs real money.

Pure profit. In App Payments for the lonely. Not sure how I'd feel if I was making money off that.

justboxing2• 12 years ago

I don't understand how their business model could scale, i.e. how they would be profitable, if indeed, they have real person(s) responding to multiple women (or users who've designated themselves as a woman :).

Let say 1 "real human" is responding to 10 women at the same time, the membership income from these 10 users (not accounting for software, hardware overheads even) = $25 / month X 10 paid users = $250.

If this "real human" is located in US, even taking a minimum wage of $10 / hour and assuming he/she works 160 hours a month ( 8 hours per day x 5 days a week x 4 weeks a month), the cost of having this "real person" on the payroll = $1,600 per month!

$250 - $1,600 = - $1,350. i.e. they would be losing over 1K per every few users if this is how they are doing it.

Unless, of course, the "real human person(s)" responding to multiple women are located in India / China and work for $1 a day or something like that.

Or maybe they are using Machine Learning or some sort of Artificial Intelligence, to come up with "Cute" Texts and responses based on the User's selected preferences and his/her past Texts to this "Invisible Boyfriend".

Only in the last case does it makes sense. But then, they'd be guilty of "false advertizing" if they claim that a "real human person" is at the other end responding...

ghshephard3• 12 years ago

You are off by a couple orders of magnitude on the number of people that a real human responds to. They get paid a few (Say, 5) cents for each text, so, to earn around $10/hour, they would need to send 200 texts/hour (which is pretty easy/trivial if you are doing this full time). Each package includes up to 100 texts/month, so, that is 1 real person per two customers/hour, or 16/day, or 320 customers/month per customer representative.

Looked at another way - one customer representative can support two customers/hour (in aggregate, obviously they don't send all their texts to one person in an hour). The customer representative gets paid $10/hour, the two customers pay $50/hour.

Pretty good business model.

ajays• 12 years ago

they would need to send 200 texts/hour (which is pretty easy/trivial if you are doing this full time).

Context switching would take a while. You can't just reply with random phrases a-la Eliza[1] . In the article, the "boyfriend" responds to a specific question about Downton Abbey. Sure, in this instance the responder may be a fan of DA; but in the general case, it'll require more than 18 seconds (@200/hr) to just type up an intelligent, context-relevant response.

diverightin63• 12 years ago

The service is ran by CrowdSource, who uses Mechanical Turk to divvy out the task of responding to texts at a very small rate. So, it is a lot cheaper.

justboxing2• 12 years ago

Oh Ok! Thank you @ghshephard @diverightin63 . Now it makes sense. Wow!

novalis78• 12 years ago

There is a similar appeal to conversing with a self-learning chatbot (thinkingai.com, etc). Not as consistent at times, but similarly intriguing how "easy" it is to trick you into believing you had a "real" relationship.

empressplay• 12 years ago

This sounds like the premise of a Black Mirror episode =)

dprat0821• 12 years ago

It's inspiring but I have a question: People always think they can describe what they need (a perfect boyfriend?) But in fact not. "Perfect" things get boring very quickly, especially when you know it's designed.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

No offense, it just creeps me out. Then again I do know people whose only friends are in MMOs and that provides visual stimulation as well.

dirtflinger• 12 years ago

OH YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! I built something like this a long long time ago as a quirky project for my CS class at Columbia. When I pitched the idea to my buddies, they thought it was stupid and that my prof would have given me a shitty grade. So I scrapped it and submitted another project instead. I had 3 bots hooked up to the Facebook API on April 1st and it was so believable that my girlfriend thought I was cheating on her. One time she said "who the hell is this Rachel??" and would not let me leave the room until I told her who she was. I eventually confessed and she thought it was a hilarious idea. Too bad I got too busy with other shit that I put the project away on the side burner. Now I'm thinking about pulling it out again..........

“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”

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