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Ah, Coachella. Where The Flaming Lips can describe both the band on stage and the blistered labia scattered throughout the crowd. Over the next two weekends the 2016 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival descends on a sleepy community in the middle of nowhere.
This dusty expanse of nothingness becomes the throbbing epicenter of hipster idol worship for two weekends each year. With all these like-minded, fashionable youths swarming like locusts with bare midriffs and culturally-insensitive Native American headdresses, it’s hard not to think about hooking up. Well, hooking up and where to find water that’s not $5 a bottle.
Yes, heat exhaustion and steamy sex are often not far from the hipster’s mind as they slog through the world’s longest line of bumper-to-bumper traffic approaching the tragically underdeveloped yet charmingly beautiful Coachella Valley.
Inside The Beast
Once inside, you’ll be assaulted with advertising from Coachella’s twelve major corporate partners. And while nothing screams cool indie rock like American Express, you’ll quickly focus on the nearly naked throngs of millennials chewing handfuls of designer drugs and having sex in the mosh pit.
So, you’ll stuff the event’s overwhelming corporatism into that back part of your brain where you keep memories of touchy uncle Larry, and focus your attention on the true bounty of Coachella: The ladies!
The droves of beautiful women in their early-not-quite twenties showing off their spring-break bodies will turn your attention to getting laid. And why shouldn’t it? You’re young. You’ve yet to discover the futility of all existence, the reality that your life’s significance is highly suspect in any grand sense. So you might as well get some action before that concept hits home.
Ladies! Ladies! Everywhere!
Because you’re here! You’re now! You’re excited to meet somebody new! And talking to someone you’ve never met will continue to be scary! If only an app could be designed for the specific goal of meeting ladies at a music festival…
Well, the Dutch dating app Glance looks to focus on the millennial market that loves hooking up at big music festivals. You’re probably familiar with the geo-fencing technology that many apps like Snapchat use to overlay highly targeted advertisements on top of your dickpics. Well, Glance is using similar trickery for you to find that cute girl you just bumped into at the Purity Ring set.
Buy Now! Be Happy!
And that dating app isn’t alone. The nowism of today’s world is forcing app developers to live in the moment, much like hipsters and millennials continue to flaunt with ease. And great rewards lay waiting for those marketers able and willing to create an ephemeral, narcissistic social ad campaign.
Like H&M last year.
It offered an aura-shot photo booth which created filter-heavy photos of participants with three aura descriptors (i.e. spiritual, enlightened, etc), a larger-than-necessary branded message along the bottom and a totally-not-fickle plea to share on social media. Perhaps the major benefit for those on the prowl was the vacuous excuse to strike up a conversation with a hottie of the same aura-type.
Closing the Deal
But even if you’re tired of ads with your hookups, you can help your chances of getting laid by using a feature found in most phones: GPS pins!
If you’re struggling to describe the “art” exhibit you’ve popped your tent near, you can help your newfound honey find you by sending her a pin. The benefit of GPS pins is that they can be used without a cell signal to find a specific location deep in the sea of hipsters.
This works great when the available cell network is choked by thousands of self-aggrandizing, over-filtered Instagram posts. Plus, it creates a rush of exhilaration for your newly met companion. It becomes almost like a scavenger hunt where the prize is sharing a sleeping bag (sleeping optional [wink face]).
Editor’s Note: This writer has never been to Coachella. In fact, if you were to create a personalized hell, one couldn’t conjure a more perfect example. Surrounded by a grotesque mixture of advertising and what-some-consider art. Overhearing debates on the musical significance of the banjo. Nowhere to sit comfortably and questionable bathroom situations, expensive cash-only refreshments, and the people, my god the people.
Escape Velocity by Sam Howzit (CC BY)
Coachella by Thomas Hawk (CC BY-NC)
Guess Girls at the Coachella Oasis by Philip Nelson (CC BY-SA)
