T listed below are large amount of apps available on the market now for young people looking for love: Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid, to call a few. Though their rationales vary—Tinder and Bumble are both concerning the swipe, but on Bumble, women result in the move that is first along with OkCupid it is possible to get a grip on just how much information you reveal up front—they all have one or more part of common: Potential mates judge each other considering appearance.
But Willow, an innovative new application striking the App shop on Wednesday, is looking for a approach that is different. As opposed to swiping left or right in line with the first selfie the thing is that, you’re prompted to resolve a couple of three questions—written by users—that are created to spark a conversation up. What’s more, users decide when of course they would like to share photos along with other users; in the beginning, the answers to these concerns are typical dates that are future.
The app’s creator Michael Bruch claims Willow sets the “social” back social networking
Bruch, now 24, had been fresh away from ny University as he launched the software year that is last. He claims he was seeking to fill a void he noticed when working with apps that are dating centered on swipes instead of everything you like.
“You can match with a lot of individuals until you start talking to them,” Bruch tells TIME that you think are good looking but you don’t really know much about them. “If I’m going to expend time with someone I would like to understand me. that people have actually something to talk about–that’s what’s essential to”
Bruch is hoping that same curiosity about discussion is very important to numerous other young adults too. To date, Willow has gained some traction. A day over 100,000 users downloaded the beta version of the app that launched in August, sending an average of three messages.
What’s more, folks are utilizing it for longer than simply love that is finding. “It’s be much more about social breakthrough than strictly dating,” Bruch says. “If you want to log on to an have actually a laid-back discussion about video gaming you are able to, and you may additionally make use of it to spark up an intimate discussion with some body that’s significantly less than 30 kilometers away.”
The type of the application released also includes a “Discover” feature that helps users search what’s trending and better sort through questions they’d be interested in answering wednesday.
It’s an approach that is interesting the recognized shallow nature of today’s millennials—the Me Generation, as TIME’s Joel Stein pronounced in 2013. Today’s dating apps appear to feed to their narcissists that are inner. Plus it’s much easier to make somebody down based on simply their face instead of once you’ve started up a discussion. To observe how users reacted to pages 
without pictures, OkCupid among the biggest online dating sites, hid profile pictures temporarily in January of 2013 dubbing it “Blind Date time.” They unearthed that their people had been greatly predisposed to answer very first communications during that time, however the moment the pictures had been turned right back on, conversations ended–like they’d “turned regarding the bright lights during the club at midnight,” wrote one Chris Rudder, among the site’s founders.
Some millennials are finding that the pressure of putting your face out there for the public to judge can be intimidating—and in some instances, dangerous despite that somewhat depressing result. Just one single glimpse in the jerky messages posted to your Instagram account Bye Felipe (which aggregates negative communications women get online) provides a great feeling of just how annoying it could be for most people, but specially for females, wanting to navigate for the reason that artistic area. Individuals are aggressive, fetishizing, and downright cruel.
Apps like Bumble look for to greatly help women circumvent that by placing the energy of striking up discussion in entirely within their fingers. But Willow really wants to replace the focus totally, through the means some body appears as to the his / her interests are. “If your photo is certainly not being blasted available to you, the total amount of harassment and communications you’re gonna get the break off will be reduced,” Bruch claims.
The app’s mission sounds like a cheesy line from a rom-com: a hapless sap whining that they wish someone would take interest in their thoughts and not their looks on its surface. But, Bruch and Willow’s other founders are hoping it offers carved a location on the list of array apps that focus on the millennial life that is generation’s.