Ever since the presidential election, there has been a lot of talk about how to bring the country together in a very partisan environment — particularly a climate in which President Donald Trump is doing a lot of things that his critics really don’t like.
A new dating app offers a fun, if silly, insight into this question: Maybe part of the answer lies in American partisans’ love for guacamole and hate for slow walkers.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7966185/Hater_app.png)
The chart above shows data from the new Hater app, looking at what people who love Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump like and dislike. There’s not much overlap, but the few categories that do get attention from across the aisle are bread and guacamole, which both Trump and Clinton fans love, and slow walkers, which both Trump and Clinton fans hate.
Hater, by the way, is a very … interesting concept for an app. Here’s how the head of data analytics at Hater explained it to Reddit: “Hater is a new dating app that matches you with other people who hate the same stuff.” (The app, however, will limit what people can say they hate — specifically to exclude bigotry, discrimination, and hate speech.)
Yeah, a dating app isn’t going to fully answer the question about how to bring America together. For starters, the results aren’t based on a scientific poll. And there is very likely some skewing in the findings based on who even decides to pick up an app like this in the first place.
But the data is interesting nonetheless. Not least because one of Trump’s most well-known supporters said during the campaign that one of the reasons to support Trump was to stop the proliferation of taco trucks, which would be presumably stocked with guacamole, on “every corner.” Apparently, some Trump supporters would be okay with all those taco trucks — even if many are worried about the cultural change they signal.
So there you have it. If you ever want to reach out to someone on the other side, walk fast and maybe offer some bread and guacamole.