Social media tends to rule the social interactions we have in college. Remember when you sat through a lecture going through tagged photos of that cute guy you met last night? Not only are we engulfed by websites like Facebook, but we also find ourselves wrapped up in apps geared towards the dating world. Whether we want to admit it or would rather hide behind the excuse, “I just go on for fun,” there’s no denying that these types of social media and dating apps contribute to how we approach our relationships. Are all of these websites and apps really worth our time, though?
An app called Lulu, created in December of 2012, has created somewhat of a following from high school to college-aged females. While Lulu doesn’t have an enormous presence on Penn’s campus, it has definitely made a mark. I mean, who else would be writing all these reviews for guys on our campus? They can’t have that many exes from back home.
Lulu claims in its description in the App Store that it is “the first-ever network to unleash the value of girl talk and empower girls to make smarter decisions—starting with relationships.” The description provides a nice sugar coating, but Lulu is basically a network that only females can log into so they can anonymously read and write reviews for their male Facebook friends. So that cute guy you Facebook-stalked in class? Yup, he’s on there.
Why do girls on campus bother using Lulu? One Lulu-er reported, “When I was in a relationship, I used Lulu to keep tabs on my boyfriend, but now that I’m single, I use it to scope out hookups.”
Another Lulu-er said, “I don’t use Lulu for anything serious, I simply use it to get a good laugh. I don’t read too much into the reviews, too many angry exes out there.” Whether we use Lulu to get insight into that mystery boy or simply to laugh at our guy friends, the fact is that girls still log into the app.
While Lulu hasn’t quite reached the popularity that its creators may have hoped (at least not on Penn’s campus), it still sits on many of our phones in a “Miscellaneous” app folder. Many of the girls on campus that I spoke with all came to the similar conclusion that while Lulu is funny, it’s also not exactly a healthy app to be using. Is it really empowering the females on this campus to “make smarter decisions” as it claims, or is it actually an app that could cause potential harm?
One girl I interviewed had a very insightful comment, stating that “[Lulu] brings about the idea of fighting fire with fire or an eye for an eye; is the way to go against guys talking about their hook ups simply to give girls the forum to do so as well?” Essentially, we are putting ourselves on the same playing field as those “jerks” that talk about their hook ups with their buddies. In the case of Lulu, however, we’re letting the entire female population know if we thought a guy was cute or even how he was in bed.
So what do the guys on Penn’s campus think of this app that they can’t even get into? One anonymous male student said that he had actually viewed his Lulu profile before. I asked him what he thought of it and besides being upset that one “betch” (Yes, he used the word betch) claimed he owned crocs, he found his reviews to be pretty positive. When asked if he thought Lulu was harmful, he said, “I think everything about the app is meant to be positive. If you have a poor profile, you can always take it down too. Rather than automatically receiving a profile, you should be asked if you want a profile to be created, though.”
Another boy said, “I think [Lulu] is fun. Guys generally don’t take the comments to heart as much as girls would.” Most of the guys who were interviewed said that they didn’t care too much but that if this were an app about females, “hellfire would break loose.”
Lulu doesn’t seem to have caused much harm yet. But is it really worth using the app if all we’re doing is reading information about boys that we haven’t even taken the time to get to know yet? As one girl put it, “I might have decided not to hook up with a certain guy because of a bad review he had. Could that review have been just a spiteful ex and he’s really a great guy? Maybe, but we don’t give ourselves the chance to figure that out the natural way.”
Use Lulu at your own discretion, but remember that while one review may change the way you look at someone, consider getting to know the person outside of Lulu’a ten-point scale. Dig a little deeper and you might just find that the guy with a 5.8 from his ex is actually a 10.