‘Yenta’ app hooks you up
New smartphone program pairs users according to physical proximity — and may lead to sex rather than marriage, cynics suggest
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Are you in the mood for Jewish love, and you want it RIGHT NOW?
If so, you’re in luck, thanks to the latest app devoted to romance — Yenta, which pairs up potential partners based on their location.
Launched at the end of August, the program uses tracking software on smartphones to notify Yenta subscribers of other members in the area, telling them precisely how far apart they are and allowing them to look at one another’s photos and other information. Users fill out brief profiles that ask, “What’s your shtick?,” and can define themselves on a scale of “Just Jewish” to “Super Jewish.” A video produced by the New York Post reports that there are about 1,000 Yenta users at the moment, although buzz is building.
A representative of Yenta presented the Post with a scenario in which three Jewish singles, “waiting on line for their lattes,” find one another via the app and “strike up a conversation.”
Cynics, predictably, suggest that the app will be put to, er, other uses — activities that don’t end under the chuppah or with nostalgic memories and lots of grandchildren. On Gothamist and other websites, Yenta is being likened to Grindr, the geography-based app famous for allowing gay men to find each other and . . . enjoy pursuits that don’t involve candle-lit dinners and long walks on the beach.
The app’s iTunes page says it should be downloaded only by users 17 and older.
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