Dating app finds hilarious way to match people based on their sense of humor

Are you bored of scrolling through multiple people and not finding anyone who matches your personality? If yes, say hello to Schmooze, a new dating app that does not use conventional algorithms but matches you with potential partners through the memes they like. According to Tech Crunch, Schmooze is a “matchmaking app that combines machine learning and memes to connect people.” Vidya Madhavan, the founder, says the app uses a “humor algorithm” that matches people based on their taste in memes. Instead of similar personality traits, music, and food,  Madhavan believes people can be a match through a unified sense of humor.

This idea came to the 27-year-old when she worked as an analyst with McKinsey in India while debating whether to attend grad school in California. Madhavan emailed ten people on LinkedIn who attended U.S. business schools for advice, out of which only one replied. In a few days, she found herself in a back-and-forth conversation with that person, saying, “we exchanged, like, 200 emails, all of them fundamentally jokes.” Long a story short, Madahavn is now happily married to that person. She says their shared sense of humor brought them together, and that is when the idea of Schmooze came to life. The app now has over 10,000 downloads in America, with people using the classic left-right swipe on more than 5,000 memes.

Schmmoze seems to fit Generation Z like a glove since a trendy way to associate with new people in this era is with memes. To use the app, a person swipes right to like, left to dislike, and up to love memes from a selection curated via artificial intelligence. Potential matches will pop up on the screen based on meme choices and the person can either “Snooze” or “Schmooze.” The algorithm is solely based on what types of humor both you and the potential match enjoy or reject. Schmooze has also launched a new feature called “Schmooze Flirts” for users to share memes with their matches.“Schmooze Flirts” handpicks memes from the app’s algorithm that would more likely encourage users to send memes to spark a conversation.

Users have 48 hours to message the other person, or the chat will automatically disappear. The app also provides icebreakers to help you before a match gets removed. “Schmooze Ayooo,” an additional option on the app, lets you post funny pictures from your camera roll. When setting up a profile, the user must answer what their “#MemeVibe” is by selecting options such as dark humor, puns, wholesome, relatable, NSFW, gaming, and anime, among other categories. They can also add profile photos, a bio, favorite music artists, memes, and their TV show binge list. Vidya Madhavan and Abhinav Anurag founded the startup and beta-tested the Schmooze app at Stanford University.

The beta version came out in March 2021, and now the app has more than 15 million memes swiped and 750,000+ matches made. Last year, the company raised $3.2 million in seed funding, led by Inventus Capital and Silicon Valley Quad, in collaboration with Lightspeed and Graph Ventures. As fun as it looks, it is to be noted that extensive background checks have not yet been completed to eliminate people with a history of crime or violence, so you could still come across fake profiles. The target audience for Schmooze is Gen Z (17+), and we encourage you to stay safe, especially on online dating platforms.