OkCupid Writer by Commission - does this idea have legs?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hello, good people on the Straight Dope! (And greetings to the neutral and evil members as well).

I’ve been a longtime lurker and admirer of the Dope, and was hoping for some feedback on a harebrained but somewhat intriguing idea I had on this fine Sunday afternoon.

I’ve been on the dating website OkCupid on and off for the past five years. My account had been in hibernation for the past year or so, because I was (a) in a serious, seriously awesome relationship, and (b) I lived in a small town far away from other towns, and the online pickin’s were slim. I moved to the Bay Area about a month ago, and I’ve revived and updated my account in order to make friends.

I have a knack for writing funny, winning profiles that people respond well to. To me, they’re kind of a fun but casual puzzle like Sudoku. I like experimenting with different voices while still keeping the content honest. My current profile is actually my third profile for the site, and each profile got a lot of positive responses, including one which didn’t have any pictures, which I posted to see if anyone would be interested by my profile if I didn’t have my pretty mug attached to it.

Today, it occurred to me that there must be a market for people who cannot figure out what glaringly awkward sentence/paragraph/aura is keeping people from replying to their messages. Editing profiles is something I would almost do for recreation gratis, but spare time is precious and getting a bit of money would make it a whole lot more compelling. I don’t think I’d want to offer to actually write anyone’s profile from scratch, since I could see it going badly for them when they actually meet people in person, but I was thinking about proof-reading on commission as well as perhaps making up fun nonsense tribute profiles, such as for a person’s favorite stuffed animal or pet.

How do people think this idea might be put into practice? I considered putting a small paragraph up under a note or somewhere in my profile for people to message me if they might be interested. This would have the benefit of direct connection (ie: I could read that person’s profile right away and know what they’re talking about), plus the people who write me would have read my profile and presumably admired it enough to want me to help them with theirs. Would the OkCupid gods zing me for this, and what could they do? It would be a shame if my profile got shut down, since I’ve been meeting some cool people through it. But could I get into worse trouble than that? Legal trouble? Might Craigslist be a better approach? Or should I start a blog, and link it to the site?

In case these details are relevant to how you’d approach this: I am female, 24-years-old. I am college-educated, and work full-time. The pay is adequate for a modest life-style, but the extra money would be welcome.

Thanks,

St. Elvis

2

It seems your big problem is going to be drumming up business.

3

Unless the people whose pages you’re writing can match the caliber of their new fancy profiles in private messages it likely won’t help them all that much. By this point you’ll already have their money, though, so maybe that’s unimportant. That being said, there’s no argument that a good profile helps a bunch if they can. I’ve got a funny one and the main benefit was that I didn’t have to bother contacting girls myself.

4

I’d throw a couple of bucks your way to write a profile. The one I’m using sure as hell isn’t working.

5

You’re female…of course you’ve had positive responses.

6

Doy. I missed that part.

Perhaps the OP is unaware of the disparity in response rates.

7

I think this idea has merit. However, the biggest problem will be convincing people to use this service. Let’s face it; most people who can’t market themselves well have absolutely no idea that they lack this skill.

8

Also this.

9

This is a great idea. Your next step is to offer your services for free for a small group of people and use the increased amount of interest in the profiles in your advertisement. If you are really good and this is a useful service people will definetly pay.

10

That can only be read by members of OkCupid. :frowning: