Watch out, Tinder: Pokemon Go is new way to find love – by bumping into people
Seeing someone equally as engrossed in Pokemon Go as you might just be the start of something wonderful. There’s even a website to help you find a match - called PokeDates, inevitably
Pokemon Go is better than Tinder. That’s what Willie Diaz says when asked if the app is useful for finding potential partners. Diaz’s friend, Josue Quinonez, says he has already met three women by using the app.
“It’s not as shallow, it’s more like we have a common interest, we like to go outside and discover new things,” Diaz says. “Discovering new things is so much more dope than ‘I’m going to sit at home and swipe left or swipe right.’”
On a Wednesday night, Diaz and Quinonez are standing in the Myriad Market Hall in San Francisco , a carnival-like plaza with numerous street food stalls and pop songs blasting through the speakers.
But unlike a carnival, the crowd consists of 20-somethings adorned with Pokemon Go costumes or accessories, their eyes slightly glazed from one too many US$4 Jell-O shots (free if you show the bartender a rare Snorlax creature caught via the Pokemon app).
Myriad’s nostalgic atmosphere for the tipsy 20-somethings represents how millennial players are using Pokemon Go – an augmented reality twist on the popular ’90s Nintendo video game – to interact with each other in a new, sometimes romantic, way.