Will Pervasive Social Networking Turn Museums Into Pickup Hot-Spots?
Guggenheim Museum (cc photo by Ernst Moeksis)
Michael O’Hare thinks there should be more of a singles scene at museums:
In fact, I wonder that museums haven’t become a favored place for educated young people to meet strangers : you’re assured that anyone there is enough like you to be worth at least some schmoose, it’s safe, and all the stuff in the previous paragraph. As a former museologist, I always watch the visitors as much as the displays and I see surprisingly little of this. I bet the typical single museum visitor in his or her twenties would be more amenable to chatting with a stranger than the strangers seem to fear: try it! If you go alone to a bar and come up empty, you’ve wasted the evening and hurt your liver. If you go alone to a museum and don’t meet anyone, you still meet Vermeer or a real gigantotherium. The principle is analogous to Edith Stokey’s recipe for how to never ever wait in line: carry a book!
I think there are two practical hurdles here. One is that a relatively large proportion of people in your average museum are visiting from out of town. The other is that it’s simply a coordination issue—because this sort of thing isn’t normally done, people looking to meet people aren’t necessarily out at the museum, and advances would be “weird” relative to them being made in another context.
But consider this issue raised by Julian Sanchez:
We’re at most a few years off from broad adoption of augmented reality applications in widely-used smartphones, which will have all of us radiating reams of data to anyone in our physical proximity who actually cares. Your Facebook profile will dog you like one of those floating Sims icons. You won’t just know what the girl sitting across the coffee shop is blasting on her iPod, you’ll be able to listen in. All the tech is actually here already, if not in quite the fancy form it’s implemented at the link above. All it would take is for someone to integrate the location-sensitive functions of an app like Loopt into the apps for Facebook or Last.fm, and you’ve got a point-and-profile system. The real question is whether people actually want to signal that much in the physical context. Some of us are chary of giving every stranger in ping-shot a pretext for striking up a conversation.
Of course the answer to Julian’s worry here would presumably be that you could use some kind of setting to signal implicitly or explicitly that you’re not interested in strangers talking to you. And the same feature could transform the dating scene; people not interested in amorous advances could broadcast this fact to the audiences, while those who are interested could also broadcast that. This, in turn, could change the dynamics at places like museums that aren’t customary places to meet people.
And of course it could have a really transformative impact on infidelity and ways to snoop around and see if your partner is cheating on you.
30 Responses to “Will Pervasive Social Networking Turn Museums Into Pickup Hot-Spots?”
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July 14th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Michael O’Hare thinks there should be more of a singles scene at museums…
I know the MFA up here in Boston has long hosted singles events. Never been to one, but I’ve seen them advertised.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I think the real issue is that people saw The International. That attempt at meeting a stranger in a museum didn’t turn out so well.
(It was the bright spot in an otherwise dull political thriller, but still: many died.)
July 14th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
At the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco they actually leave the museum open late and serve drinks so that the younger crowd can mingle. It’s quite an interesting scene where I imagine many go to try and meet people.
http://www.calacademy.org/events/nightlife/
July 14th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Interestingly, I was reading a sci-fi novel a month or so back where people did indeed do what you are suggesting.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Geez! How out of touch can someone be?
Museums and arts organizations in major cities have been hosting singles events, cocktail hours, young patrons programs for at least a decade.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
please, do not turn museums into meat markets for plugged-in twenty-somethings. there are a million bars and coffee shops in this country where people can do that.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
As a plugged-in twenty-something, I agree with cleek. There are also art openings that are usually free or cheap, and often have free or cheap alcohol to boot, which function perfectly well as meat markets. Or so I am told.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I don’t want my girlfriend forcing me to broadcast my taken status on my Pre. That would make me a terrible wingman.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
The Guggenheim has First Fridays on the first Friday of every month (suspended for the summer, restarting in Oct).
July 14th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Yep, you’re pretty behind on this, Matt. The key, as with all these cultural connections, is being able to go to sufficiently tasteful new gallery openings or the right museums.
http://www.mcachicago.org/programs/ff.php?page=friday
July 14th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I think the real issue is that people saw The International. That attempt at meeting a stranger in a museum didn’t turn out so well.
Also: Dressed To Kill.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
which will have all of us radiating reams of data to anyone in our physical proximity who actually cares.
Foursquare’s sorta close, but it’d be awesome if it were more public.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Good lord this is not some bright new idea. 20 years ago I would go to the National Gallery at least once a week to meet women. Of course if I did not no big deal, there was always something good to see. Especially in a free or pay what you want museum like the Met in NY. Go, just visit one room, spend some time and enjoy it, and you might even meet someone interesting.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
which will have all of us radiating reams of data to anyone in our physical proximity who actually cares.
Not all of us, you can count me out for sure.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
So humans will go into heat electronically.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Not necessarily. You might encounter a wing-woman.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Lots of girls have used this as a conversation point with me. After a girl has heard my name, she’ll grab her blackberry, check my fb-profile and says something like “we seem to have a common friend”. Or when there is a party forthcoming, people check out in advance what kind of movies I like and begin to talk about that without mentioning the fb. Quite nice.
This is one of the reasons I keep my profile open and tell that I’m a single man. When married, I’ll perhaps share less.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
My wife and I once went with some single friends to a weekly cocktail party held at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Although I wasn’t in the market, I came away concluding that a significant number of the attendees were only there for the drinks and the hookup potential and would never go to a museum otherwise. In other words, it was clearly not an event for museum goers to connect with like minded folks, it was just a singles bar in an unusual venue.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Johann @17:
After a girl has heard my name, she’ll grab her blackberry, check my fb-profile and says something like “we seem to have a common friend”.
Wait, she does this right in front of you in the middle of a conversation?
July 14th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
As a 20-something single woman who frequently goes to [art] museums my myself (not to the specifically singles-oriented mixers, just during regular hrs) I have always noticed how very, very few men are there without a significant other. On the other hand there are always many women their either alone or with friends… Guys, take note!
July 14th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
people not interested in amorous advances could broadcast this fact to the audiences, while those who are interested could also broadcast that.
Didn’t our society come up with engagement/wedding rings for this purpose many years ago?
July 14th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
As usual, the queers are way ahead of the breeders on this one.
Oh. Looks like I need to go through to the 18th century Dutch gallery- hottie3820 looks promising.
As it were.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Outside of the socializing cocktail events, I find museums to be too awkwardly quiet for starting conversations with strangers. Gallery openings are much easier.
Nonetheless I have given this a try here in north Texas where I tend not to have much in common with the women at bars. Sadly, I rarely ever see any young single local women at the museums. I’m guessing women with such interests left north Texas as soon as they could.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Matt: “advances would be “weird” relative to them being made in another context.”
Only if you don’t know how to do them – which I assume is a major problem for Matt given his overly aggressive, self-conscious, low self-esteem “Talking Heads” persona.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
By the way, Matt giving pick up advice?
Read “The Game”, Matt, or “The Venusian Arts Handbook”. Learn something. I know, I know, that’s hard for you, Matt, it’s not like going to Harvard and dabbling in philosophy, but try.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
you could use some kind of setting to signal implicitly or explicitly that you’re not interested in strangers talking to you.
But you might not want this kind of signal to be available. Because of course, no one is interested in just any stranger talking to them. The nice thing about the current situation is, if a stranger talks to you, you take a first impression, and then say either “Oh, sorry, I’m married/celibate/just not interested in meeting anyone right now” or “Why yes, as a matter of fact, I was feeling lonely,” based on the stranger’s attractiveness. But once everyone’s using magic e-signals, the first response becomes unconvincing (”If you’re a nun/priest, why does your facebook status say “is desperately hoping to get laid”?), so you either have to mark yourself as unavailable or be unpleasantly honest to people.
Unfortunately, this won’t necessarily stop the social change you’re suggesting. Because for people who really aren’t interested, there’s no real drawback to declaring their disinterest: if you’re married and faithful, you’d probably prefer to be able to get a drink or see an exhibition without being hit on. But once all the unavailable people start declaring themselves, the available people can no longer preserve their useful ambiguity. So we may just have to all start being more blunt in our social relations.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Latinist,
Exactly right. If a guy hassles a woman at work, the sexual harassment laws put the legal duty on the employer to make the guy (whether supervisor, coworker or client) to knock it off or the employer faces legal liability. Likewise, if a woman in a bar is being hassled by a man, a bartender or a bouncer will get involved (if women don’t feel safe in a bar, they won’t come back).
So I’m dubious Julian’s dystopia could ever happen. Unless women are given some control of which men should go forth or come hither, what sane woman would broadcast to the surrounding public, ‘come and get me big boy’?
July 15th, 2009 at 4:06 am
Natural History Museum, London, Thursday evenings late opening.
I’m just saying.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
“Edith Stokey’s recipe for how to never ever wait in line: carry a book!”
Como?
July 17th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Well, the broadcasting availability (and interests) thing has already been done. In Japan, no surprise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovegetty .
And here’s a US version, apparently never implemented: http://reality.media.mit.edu/pdfs/serendipity.pdf .
Of course, what you broadcast doesn’t actually have to be true. . . .