Hugo Bryan Castillo
Staff Writer
Online dating is the popular way to find a partner. Instead of going to a bar or going to a club, one can easily find their special someone in the comfort of their own home.
There are certain factors that one looks for when finding a mate: gender, age, location, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, body type, etc. But how about music? Can one really find the love of their life based on the music he/she listens to?
“You can’t match a great couple based on music,” said Jeffrey Craig, a 19-year-old sophomore psychology major at the University of La Verne. “Music doesn’t define personality.”
Such Web sites as match.com, eharmony.com and americansingles.com provide the best resources for finding that one person: personality profiles, pictures, message boards, etc.
Lance Massey, who refers to himself as the “head gorilla,” has done exactly that with his Web site gorillapop.com, an online dating service that matches people based on the music they enjoy.
Log on, fill out a profile with the basic information and list your top five favorite songs and artists. Then you are ready to search through profiles and hook up.
“Matching people through music is a good idea. You can tell a lot about a person through the music they listen to,” said Michelle Baccus, a ULV junior marketing major.
Massey, the lead programmer for gorillapop.com, first got this idea a couple of years ago when he was involved with the music business in New York. Gorillapop.com first started as a source to download music.
Massey spent hours looking through other music downloading Web sites, looking for the latest music. He attempted to talk to major music labels for songs, but they were not interested in speaking to him.
After Massey was stuck in the mud with his idea, he changed the Web site’s direction from downloading music to an online dating service, thinking it would be a good way for him to get money.
“People are willing to give-up money to hook-up for a Friday night,” Massey said.
He also found out that most of the people on dating Web sites are college students between the ages of 18-25.
Already running for a couple of weeks, the Web site was not going so well. To date only 50 individuals have registered through gorillapop.com.
“We’re just going slowly. But it is not a problem. It is just a question of build up,” Massey said. “I’m kind of glad we’re still small.”
But 19-year-old ULV sophomore political science major Lauren Moon disagreed with the idea behind gorillapop.com: “Just because someone likes my kind of music doesn’t mean we’re compatible.”
ULV freshman criminology major, Matthew Cordova, also disagreed with the idea. “Music is not an important factor when matching people.”
He is sure of this due to the fact that he enjoys hip-hop and R&B and his girlfriend enjoys rock.
“You learn to listen to the other person’s favorite music,” Cordova said.
Massey hopes more people discover gorillapop.com and enjoy the services it provides.
Massey is not ashamed to admit, that he too, is in search of meeting that special someone online, and he constantly searches profiles on his own Web site. “I do it all the time. I do it constantly,” he said.
To try it out for yourself, log onto www.gorillapop.com and like the Web site says, “Let the love gorilla match you up with all who groove the same.”
Hugo Bryan Castillo can be reached at hcastill@ulv.edu.
