Last week, Natasha Aponte went viral as the woman who tricked hundreds of men on Tinder. Aponte invited hundreds of guys on the same date without their knowledge, only to reveal she wanted them to compete in a "Hunger Games style competition" in order to actually go out with her. "Dating apps are very difficult," Aponte informed the crowd of men who gathered in Union Square on Aug. 19th on the assumption they were meeting her for a date. "So I said 'Maybe I can bring everyone here in person and see how that goes. So, do you have what it takes to win a date with me?"
The story first went viral on Twitter, though, now it's been revealed that the stunt was actually a "social experiment" created by video producer Rob Bliss that was two years in the making. Bliss and Aponte claim the point of the experiment was to demonstrate how shallow modern dating culture is by implementing the "swipe left, swipe right" mentality in real life.
While many of the men who were duped by Aponte and Bliss were clearly outraged - one man even grabs the mic at one point and starts to trash Aponte, others called the police - a decent number actually stayed and participated in the challenge. At the end of the challenge, Aponte did go on a date with one of the men.
"Just because someone doesn't check off every box of what we find attractive doesn't mean they aren't," Aponte says at the end of "The Tinder Trap" video. "It's absurd isn't it? To judge people by such petty things as if they like to wear khakis. We know that. Look at how angry this makes people and yet this is what we've doing the whole time. I guess sometimes you just have to lay a trap to catch people's attention and start a conversation."
You can watch the whole thing go down here:
Aponte has been the subject of some serious internet vitriol since the stunt went viral. āIām taking all the hits right now,ā she said during an interview on Good Morning America. Though she says that āItās funny because all of the negative that Iām getting from these guys ā [they] are still in my inboxes trying to date me.ā
Both Aponte and Bliss claim they weren't trying to get anything out the stunt, claiming they just wanted to make a point. What do you think - are Bliss and Aponte on to something about our darting culture or was this just plain, ole messed up?