Oops! I created a viral international manhunt to find a boyfriend
SF Personals: A guerrilla marketing approach to dating
Oops! I did it again. I went viral for looking for love, and now millions of people know I have zero bitches, and CNN contacted me about it. Only this time, the whole gang is in it together.
It all started when my friends were lamenting about not having girlfriends, and I jokingly offered to find them ones via flyer (I am notorious for flyering for my schemes, e.g. for Sit Club, an anti-run club, and Strippers for Charity, a charity gala). But my friends were actually interested, and so dear reader, we embarked on our quest to find love.
I took inspiration from the βpersonalsβ section of vintage newspapers and made a website sfpersonals.com.
Then I gathered my most eligible single friends at my office hours ($1 margarita night), pitched the idea, and interviewed them. (You may already be familiar with my investigative journalism if you went to Tam High in 2017, where I was the newspaperβs Editor-in-Chief. Go Hawks!)
I wrote about each friend like a character you could easily imagine in your mind - colorful, extremely specific, and low-key roasting them.
I also described their ideal partner as a character you can imagine in your head, figuring this would make readers who resonate even more interested, and maybe make readers think of a friend who had those qualities, so theyβd forward it along. Each bachelor/bachelorette also had a key question they asked their admirers, to help them vet contenders.
I figured that to reach the right people, this would have to go viral, so itβd have to be funny and entertaining to everyone, not just people looking for a relationship.
I added a crossword, because newspapers have crosswords. Also, if you donβt like hot singles, then you probably like crosswords, and thatβs how Iβd capture the whole market.
I included some extremely unhelpful FAQs, based not on actual frequently asked questions, but on questions I preemptively thought would be funny to answer.
And yes, I did put myself on the site, because I am a diligent Product Mommy who dogfoods her product (and I may or may not have ulterior motives).
I also made my friends promise that if I find their future spouses, I get to officiate their wedding. You see, three years ago I became a licensed Reverend because itβs fun and easy to do, and every year since, Iβve received an email congratulating me on another year of being a Reverend, unknowingly relentlessly taunting me for still having yet to officiate a wedding. This weighs on me greatly.
Hereβs the thing: dating apps are counter-incentivized, they earn money by keeping you single. However, my incentives are aligned, I want to find my friends partners so that I get to officiate their weddings. My Certificate of Ministry is burning a hole in my pocket.
Finally, to advertise my sexy singles, I put flyers up around San Francisco.
Within 24 hours, a dating coach posted a picture on Twitter, and it blew up. Then it went viral on Substack, Redditβs r/sanfrancisco, on the literal front page of Reddit itself, Reels, Facebook, Threads, even Pinterest???
It amassed millions of views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and 600+ people emailed in to date my friends.
The emails were extremely funny.
Thousands of people thought Anna and Will should date. The comments section of every post was filled with it, and people wrote long, elaborate theories on why they werenβt already dating, devising fan-fiction basically. Dozens of people emailed just to say they should date, and someone even wrote a multi-paragraph essay about it. Because of this, Anna and Will went on a date. I heard it went alright.
Cougars loved Alex and he discovered that the feelings were mutual. And so he increased his age range.
People fucked heavy with the crossword. They would email me just to ask if they completed the crossword correctly.
Anna has two exes and theyβre both Chinese and named Kevin. I told her, βAnna, you just havenβt met the right Chinese Kevin yet.β Then a man wrote in who met exactly what Anna was asking for, and was Chinese and named Kevin. Her soulmate, I think.
Someone sent the most condescending but well-meaning email titled: βAnna is autistic and thatβs wonderful.β Also, someone armchair diagnosed Will with Marfanβs Syndrome. None of you people are doctors, what are you even talking about.
A women wrote that she was happily partnered, however, she did want to share a multi-page self-insert story of her rescuing Mehran from prison.
Four separate men answered my question (βhow will you support my projects like Strippers for Charityβ) by saying theyβd MC the event?? Like some guys will really read βhow will you support my hard workβ and reply, βwell Iβll take over as the star of the show.β
Multiple people made LinkedIn accounts just to apply to date us (I should really be getting a commission here).
A group of high schoolers saw me in the wild putting up posters and asked to take a photo with me (I guess this is how celebrities feel??)
Two chaotic bisexual queens offered to date any of us.
The scheme went viral internationally, gaining traction in some really random places. Why were people in Taiwan reading this. Who are these people.
Only ~5k (3.6% of) people who visited the site actually lived in San Francisco. No, the βSFβ in βsfpersonalsβ does not stand for βsingle friends,β as one commenter thought.
And The Media once again slid into my DMs.
I was also invited to present this project at Demos & Chill! And my friends went on dates with their admirers, but those are not my stories to share.
So. Ultimately, did this work?
No.
But neither do most relationships! Also, itβs important to remember that 50% of marriages end in divorce anyway. Maybe the real relationship was the clout we gained along the way.
To be serious though, itβs only been two months since I launched this and many prospects are still in the pipeline. Plus it keeps randomly blowing up, so itβs possible the right people just havenβt seen it yet. If a marriage does come from this, Iβll make sure my dear ππΆπ & π»πππΆπ readers are the first to know.
I have some more personal reflections about this project, but thatβs so cringe, so Iβm hiding them behind the paywall like a coward. An entrepreneurial coward. If you wanna be nosy, thereβs a price to pay ($6.90).
Thanks for reading my blog, love ya!
Edit 10/9/25: this project was featured in the Washington Post.
P.S. Read about my other dating-related scheme, the time I made a survey for guys who want to date me (as a joke) but after 400+ responses, I felt an obligation to the scientific community to write a research paper. And then Substack featured it in their Weekender.
P.P.S. If youβre a loyal ππΆπ & π»πππΆπ reader, you may recognize Cool Alex from the SF Personals site, as we met him through our Alextravaganza (Alex-themed party we threw).
