Like I said in previous posts, OkCupid has been a weirdly fun anthropological experiment. I’ve been switching my zip code every couple of days, and having conversations with people from other states/countries about their OkC usage. I gave life advice to the man from Ohio who used MS Paint to make himself look like a banana (manana), because he had said he spent all of his time on reddit, was afraid of what people thought of him, and fished for compliments by asking if looking like Adrian Brody meant that he looked deformed (he sent me a picture). I don’t usually try to give unsolicited advice, but he seemed miserable. He told me that I had set his perspective straight, so hopefully I helped him a little bit.

I’ve recently been talking to a British man, and we’ve been discussing whether or not this counts as “armchair anthropology,” an old anthro movement where people would come up with theories by just reading ethnography, rather than actually doing fieldwork. I don’t think it does, because I actively communicate with people. I’ve decided to answer people who make an actual effort to mention something on my profile (which I’ve kept 100% honest besides the zip code), and who don’t mention my physical appearance. I even wrote what I was up to on the “self summary” section.

At one point, I put in 12345 as my zip code, which turned out to be Upstate New York (I think). I talked to a man who has been spit on by Steve Malkmus (kicking myself for not making a “Spit on a Stranger” joke. The most recent thing that I’ve learned is that nobody in Djibouti, Djibouti uses OkCupid.