We’ve been receiving several tips over the last week or two about a possible “Columbia/Barnard Tinder” site, Spark@CU, so we decided to investigate. Some of you may have received emails from Spark@CU similar to those sent out by DateMySchool last year, such as this one:
Subject line: Spark@CU
Hey there! We have exciting news for you. Another Columbia/Barnard student added you to their list on Spark@CU. Log in to make your own list, and see who you’ll let sparks fly with!
Register and start your list at http://www.sparkatcu.com/
We also got this question from our anonymous tip form:
mama bwog, so is spark@cu a thing or am i being catfished. my bullshit senses are down after an all nighter
much love, zzzzz
Two of your friendly editors went over to the site to see if phishing was amok. Our verdict? Seems pretty legit. We registered, entered each other’s UNIs, and quickly received emails from the site first saying that we’d been added by someone else, and then a second with the UNI of the mutual connection. We were invited to respond to the email to get the conversation flowing.
So there you have it. Go forth and find love in a hopeless place, fellow Columbians.
17 Comments
@privacy please? The lack of a privacy policy is sort of sketch. At least Tinder says that they’re not gonna be creeping on your matches, crushes, and conversations. Spark@CU? Not so much.
@2013 4 lyfe http://cuscramble.com/
@matchu.me why the fuck didnt you guys promote my website when I made this same shit 3 years ago, but you promote everyone else’s clone? thanks for not supporting your own.
@CC '15 I just got one of these emails, thought, “God, am I in middle school?” and then I got here by googling “spark @ cu”. It’s kind of exasperating not knowing who added me.
Hoping it’s the cute boy from my music hum class who looks like a labradoodle, but chances are low :(
@CC '15 (also, I don’t know his name, so I can’t find out)
@Anonymous They should really remove the feature that allows you to see the first letter of the uni of the person who liked you. That takes away a lot of the anonymity which makes a site like this appealing, especially for people with less common first letters.
@Spark@CU Thank you for the suggestion. This is a popular request, and due to this demand for increased private, we have removed this feature.
@Spark@CU privacy*
@Anonymous What you should actually do is not reveal the names of each party even after they have been matched. Rather, you should have some sort of function by which matched individuals can communicate, and perhaps set up a date somewhere, and then have them only discover the identity of the other person once they arrive at the date.
This would ensure:
1) No one puts anyone down on their list frivolously. You would only put someone down who you were willing to meet one on one.
2) It would prevent assholes from typing in the uni of every single person they know just to see whether anyone likes them. They could only discover who likes them if they went to actually meet the person. And no one is so much of an asshole that they would turn up to a date to find out who the other person was and then just leave.
You could even try and monetize the date function by ‘recommending’ restaurants and bars nearby for the date, and having local establishments pay to be an option on the list.
@Wait doesn’t that take away the appeal of using the app, too?
guessing who added me is the only reason I signed up in the first place…
@Anonymous I liked the first initial feature! I think one of the main problems at Columbia is that everyone is too afraid to admit their feelings! By having the first initial exposed, it still keeps the air of mystery but allows you to make actual guesses at someone’s identity or allows them to subtly tell you who they are! Don’t we all need a little push forward anyway? If we want things to actually happen, we need a little less mystery.
@UGH why is no one else dtf???
@Anonymous “no one”?! LOL
@Asking for a friend Can you add Professors and TAs?
@Anonymous do prospies have uni’s yet?
@Anonymous if the TAs are grad students, then definitely yes. not sure about professors, but probably yes, since their it’s just a UNI-based matchup/correspondence
@Anonymous Seniors, get on this! Give us another chance to scramble lol