Twitter Ants: Dear Abby Rebooted: Love Advice For The Digital Age [Blogger Profile]

Dear Abby Rebooted: Love Advice For The Digital Age [Blogger Profile]: "

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.

That’s what prompted Massa and Wiegand to launch what they call a “multimedia project,” which includes an upcoming film, a book deal in the works and a highly creative, interactive website. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Every blog has its creation story, and this is theirs.

How WTF?! Came To Be

It was a rather typical night in the summer of 2009 for Massa and Wiegand, two 27-year-old Brooklynites who had been friends since age 12. Massa, who had worked for years in the music industry, had just quit her job and was glued to her laptop, surfing celebrity blogs in her PJs whilst also tele-networking with a bunch of banking people in Brazil, discussing job opportunities and getting her visa application materials in order. She was planning on moving to the exotic locale, sleeping on couches and working as a bartender for cash, and was, understandably, a bit on the frazzled side. Wiegand had just come home from a work cocktail party (she was working for New Line Cinema at the time) and, in a similarly frantic/foul mood, she threw herself on the couch and started lamenting her romantic situation and the lack of men in her stable.

“We’ve all had that moment,” Massa says, “but as Becky’s best friend, I know her day to day, so I was like, ‘OK, I get it, but actually I know that you were IMing with that publishing guy this week, and your ex-boyfriend was hanging around the apartment last week, and you made out with that random guy at that party we went to last week. You’re not dating anyone, but I objectively know that you’re talking to guys. I think you’re looking at it the wrong way.’”

This revelation lead to an idea: That all women have a “gaggle” of men, satellites who may or may not be their one and only, but were romantic prospects all the same. The two got to work writing a description of the 10 types of men in one’s gaggle — The Ex-Boyfriend Who’s Still Around, The Ego Booster, The Boyfriend Prospect, The Hot Sex Prospect, The Prospect You’re Not Sure Is a Prospect, The Accessory, The Career Booster, The Super Horny Guy Who Happens to Be Around a Lot, The Unavailable Guy, The Guy Who Just Blew You Off — and took the idea to New Line Cinema. The execs loved it, and optioned the concept as a movie idea. “They got it right away,” Massa says. “What we’re railing against is that He’s Just Not That Into You mentality, which is a movie that New Line made, also, actually.”

Blogging For Ideas

Hand over computer keyboard - blog concept

Although they had a movie in the works and were prepping a book proposal, the pair was not content to just wait around for the film and book to come to fruition. Books and movies take a long time, and they wanted to formulate the concept in the meantime. Also, they didn’t feel exactly qualified to dispense with the advice based on the Gaggle concept alone. After Wiegand left her job at New Line in April 2010, the two started J&R Creative Media, LLC, a company through which they could develop the Gaggle idea further across media platforms and start developing other, unrelated multimedia projects. The film deal was signed, sealed and delivered in January 2009, and the WTF?! blog went live in beta in Feb 2010.

“We had these ideas and wanted to get them out there now,” Massa says. “And we’d been talking to a ton of women, but we weren’t in a place yet where we could be traveling all over the country, talking to women, because we were building this idea. We wanted to start getting stories from other women, broadening the scope a bit. The more I talked to women, the bigger the idea got. It started as a gaggle and then it became WTF is Up With My Love Life?!, which is much bigger sense of: For our generation of women, how do we deal with this frustration, this exasperation? It’s not just the guys in your gaggle; it’s non-dates, technology, what are you doing with these guys in your gaggle if you’re not dating them?”

Techno-Romance

And there’s the rub. According to Massa and Wiegand, we live in a post-dating world. “There’s such a thing as techno-romance,” Massa says. “Your grandmother’s never gonna get it, but that text message is meaningful.”

Back in the day, all one had to do to show one’s interest was pick up the phone, now, there’s a bevy of venues by which a person can flirt: Twitter, Facebook, text, e-mail, MySpace (if you’re still living in 2005). Which means there’s also a bevy of ways to get utterly confused. Massa and Wiegand even include app reviews and stories about technology as a way of helping their readers break through the haze of pixels and pings.

Crowd-Sourcing Romance

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.”

The result is a compelling site where both men and women can explore their various and sundry romantic woes. And, bonus, it is great source material for their upcoming book and film. They plan to use user-submitted stories to give their creations weight and depth.

“Dating is ambiguous,” says Massa. “That’s the idea of the website. Through recognizing this and talking about it, we’re hoping that it will be a step forward for all of us who are just stuck in the He’s Just Not That Into You, The Rules, The Handbook rut.”

Amen to that.

Intrigued by Massa and Wiegand’s concepts and want a taste of what’s to come? Check out this list of apps they put together for us.

(P.S. A non-date is that dude/chick you’re about to hang with, but who has not specified his/her intentions.)

6 Apps To Help You Impress Your Non-Date

Happy Houred: Quickly find the ideal — and cheap — watering hole to meet your cute work contact for a Networking-Non-Date with Happy Houred, an app that will locate local drink specials at any time of the day and make your ambiguous schmoozing a whole lot more fun.

E-mail ‘N Walk [iTunes link]: Keep that never-ending E-Non-Date going 24/7 with the E-mail ‘N Walk app, which lets you send missives to your e-buddy on the go while your iPhone’s live video camera shows when you’re about to step in some dog sh*t.

Pair It!: Wondering how you ended up on a traditional Surprise-Non-Date? Not to worry! Look like an old pro by consulting Pair It! to find the perfect menu item to match that expensive bottle of wine that your supposed date just ordered.

Control4 My House: On your Play-Non-Date, bring the lucky guy or lady back to your place, where you can both relax on the couch and have a nightcap while you use Control4 My House to effortlessly turn down the lights, put on some mood music and get the air conditioning going.

Gowalla: Coordinate a last-minute Group-Non-Date with your friends — and their hot friends-of-friends — with Gowalla’s social checkin app. Your friends are too cool to use Foursquare, anyway.

Couch to 5K [iTunes link]: Every Friend-Non-Date doesn’t have to involve cuddling on the futon and watching True Blood. Show your “platonic” friend how productive and ambitious you can be by challenging them to train for a 5k with you!

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