Bro, who’d you hook up with last weekend? If you’re a UC Berkeley student, you can actually figure it out by checking a Facebook page dedicated to solving mystery hookups.
UC Berkeley Hook-Ups was made for Berkeley students who want to “possibly hook up with a certain person again after a wild night, but have no means of reconnecting because no information was exchanged,” one of the page admins told me through a personal Facebook message.
“This page is specifically designed to help the fellow drunk locate his/her Berk town hookup,” the about section of the page says. “If you recognize you or your story post message me with your number.
It’s working, too. The page is enjoying daily usage and has amassed 2,138 “likes” thus far.
So how does it work?
“Basically, just send us your stories via googledoc or message, and we post it, and if someone reads it that could be the person written about, the would like the post, or comment on it. Then it’s up to the person who’s story we posted to go and see the possible candidates. Messages have proven to be easier, because we have an easier way of reconnecting the people. The google doc is completely anonymous, so we don’t even know who sends us the stories,” the admin told me.
I complimented the UC Berkeley Hook-Ups admin for the focus on privacy. The page could devolve into an un-organized mess of a party thread, which is something they were keen to avoid from the start.
“Basically, we don’t want this page heading in a direction that it wasn’t intended for. We want to keep it about Berkeley hookups and help people find their ‘Drunken Cinderella,’ ” the admin explained. “If other people had this information, they could put certain people on blast and post names of the stories. We aren’t about that. Your secrets safe with us.”
Seems like the page could be a breeding ground for controversy, what with all the criticism various romance/hook-up apps have been getting lately. So has UC Berkeley Hook-Ups gotten any backlash yet?
“We’ve gotten criticism, but not about the things we’ve done, mainly about the comments being posted by other users,” the admin explained. “If a certain post seems to be too controversial, we will take action to make the situation more comfortable for our followers.”
“We don’t believe we are doing anything bad other than expressing the stories of college students that most people probably do not know. Berkeley has never been viewed as a ‘party school’ but it is a big university, and I feel like people have been a lot more low key about it because they feel embarrassed to talk about it,” The admin concluded.
What do you think? Is the UC Berkeley Hook-Ups page offensive? Humorous? A useful and thoughtful public service? Sound off!
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