Original: Dear Abby Rebooted: Love Advice For The Digital Age
Remember the days of telephone calls and pre-planned dates and letterman jackets? When the “Dear Abby” column made sense and men asked a father’s permission to initiate courtship? Nope, neither do Jessica Massa and Rebecca Wiegand, the girls behind what could be the world’s first crowd-sourced relationship advice blog, WTF Is Up With My Love Life?! “We don’t think the ‘conventional’ dating literature/self-help literature out there in bookstores and the blogosphere is actually speaking effectively to women now, because for the most part it assumes we’re living in a ‘dating’ world that no longer exists,” says Wiegand, referring to how the digital sphere – among other things – has completely turned the romantic realm on its proverbial head. When folks are breaking up with each other on Facebook, and a text message equates a love letter, it seems that we actually are quite primed for a romantic reboot.
Jessica Massa and Rebecca Wiegand realized the fact and they were about to do something about it, by means of a movie, a book and a website.
The Story of WTF?!
It all began in summer 2009, with Massa and Wiegand, who befriended with each other at twelve, being the protagonists. While Massa had left her old job in the music field and was planning to move to Brazil and earn her living as a bartender, Wiegand was working for New Line Cinema. Wiegand was back from a company party and the moment she got home she started grumbling about the unfortunate love affairs she had. Her friend Massa could not understand it at all, for she had been seeing her friend mingling with her ex boyfriend, a stranger at the bar and a newly met guy here and there.
They reached a conclusion that night: every woman had her ten types of men to deal with. From previous lovers, potential lovers to sex partners, disposable used ones and so on. The idea was totally welcomed by the executives of New Line Cinema and was going to be made into a film after the company’s blockbuster He’s Just Not The Into You — with a new perspective.
Blog For More
The film contract was confirmed in the very first week of 2009 but the two girls didn’t want to hang around. They wanted to put forward their ideas as soon as possible. Therefore, a company called J&R Creative Media was founded and a blog was launched while they were preparing a book related to the film. They could not travel around to get their message across so the digital world served them best. Listening to other women also helped further develop their idea.
Online Romance
As Massa and Wiegand suggested, the golden rules from our grandmothers no longer work. How the heck can they help us figure out a text message? And flirtation takes place not in person or on the phone anymore. It happens on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social media platforms, creating more confusion than they solve.
Still, it’s not as if either gender has the answer. Massa and Wiegand recognize that the denizens of this post-dating world are all equally muddled about what it means to date and love in a time period when it’s totally OK to ask someone out via Twitter. Therefore, they turned to the web to flesh out their idea. Their website is a truly crowd-sourced beast. Yes, they have articles and advice columns – Massa even has a weekly column on The Huffington Post – but they also have forums and tools that let their readers interact and sort out their issues together. “We want to create a website that’s a forum, where there can be an exchange of ideas,” says Wiegand. “Typically in the romance realm, these self-help books are written by a 50-year-old lady with a PhD telling you the kind of things you need to change about yourself to get a man. Jess and I were like, ‘OK, we think we figured out what’s going on, but we’re also not experts, we don’t want to pretend like we actually know everything.’ So we created a place where everybody can share ideas.”
People come to the website to learn from one another, and the creators also benefit by getting value-added stories to be incorporated by their movie and book. Massa is hoping to eradicate the over generalization of dating and everybody will soon abandon those outdated tips.
Learn more about relationships. Stop by Queenie Ang’s site where you can find out all about dating and what it can do for you.
