The new website eduHookups is the latest addition to a series of sites — including Prospect and Meeting, Spotted at Brown, Browsing Brown and College ACB — aiming to connect students on campus. The site expanded to Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design April 3, but only a handful of postings have appeared on its Brown page so far.
The website allows students to post anonymously — for example, as male seeking male — in the category of either "casuals," "serious" or "platonic." Anyone who is interested can respond privately to the post. From there, the students can decide if, when and where they want to meet.
EduHookups "got started based on a coding project," said Kyle, one of the University of Chicago students who created the site. "It was an experiment for (us) to explore website design." Kyle did not provide his last name to avoid becoming involved in controversy about the nature of the site.
Originally, the website only allowed students from the University of Chicago, where "it was embraced with a lot of enthusiasm," to register, Kyle said. The University of Chicago's section of the website has 14 pages of posts — more than all the other schools' sections combined.
Soon after its launch, other schools began to contact the site's creators requesting to join, Kyle said. It now includes 24 different universities and colleges from coast to coast, putting the membership at approximately 2,000 students.
But it has yet to catch on at Brown.
"I don't think it'll be super popular," said Liz DiMascio '13. "We have Prospect and Meeting, and that was a hit for like two weeks before it died out."
"It's slightly desperate," said Varun Kuchibhatla '14.
Tamar Yael, a freshman at RISD, wrote in an email to The Herald that she found the website "a bit under-developed," and she felt "a bit iffy" about using it. "It doesn't really help you get a better sense of what type of person you would agree to potentially meet up with," she wrote. "It only lets you know that they are in college."
"I would not expect it to be popular, but you never know," said Jonah David '13. "New technology and avenues of expressing oneself change how people act."
He said that he does not see himself using such a website. But, he added, "It seems that some people have met through blind dates or other Internet sites and have, in the end, been happy."
"I wouldn't use it," wrote Elizabeth Adler '11 in an email to The Herald. "It would make me feel like my sexuality was a commodity or something. I like to shop for boots and books online, not sexual partners."
"I'm all for people having safe, consensual, communicative, satisfying sex, duh," wrote Nupur Shridar '11 in an email to The Herald. "It makes the world a happier, sexier place. But … with all hook-up websites, including Spotted at Brown, I would hope that people were careful about who they shared their bodies with."
The creators plan to expand further in coming months. They want to add "as many schools as possible while making sure the site can handle the infrastructure," Kyle said. But as far as specific plans, "our end goal right now is responding to demands," he said. "It's hard for us to decide what direction it'll go in."
