GETTING THE KINKS OUT
Train rider rip-roaring mad about OkCupid's bawdy ads
More like “OkStupid.” A fed-up subway rider angrily tore down a series of lurid ads for the dating app OkCupid in a train car.
“All of this is gross. For kids to be looking at this, is that OK?” she said in viral videos posted to Twitter on Wednesday.
The woman walked up and down the D-train car, ripping the ads down — while ranting about COVID-19 and communism — as most straphangers looked on silently.
It was not clear when the video was recorded but the colorful ads began to appear on subway trains over the summer.
“Nicely done,” another woman tells her in the video. “That’s what bravery looks like. Say ‘no’ to propaganda.”
The provocative ads target “nonmonogamists,” monogamists, “pansexuals,” potheads, “bears,” fetishists and just about every other dating demographic.
One aimed at “every single submissive” features women’s legs walking over a prone androgynous person, who reaches out blissfully to grab one’s foot.
Another directed at “every single introvert” shows a person with their T-shirt pulled up over their face as another kneels before them, with their head pressed under the shirt.
There’s also a depiction of a threesome, and an image of two tongues slithering into one.
One rider objected to being subjected to the raunchy material on his commute.
“If fondling your partner while she sits on what appears to be a quiche is your thing, by all means go for it. I would just prefer not to have to spend half an hour sitting in the room where you’re doing it,” the man, who declined to give his name, griped to The Post.
“OkCupid’s ads make me into a nonconsensual participant in the sex lives of strangers twice a day, every day. It just skeeves me out.” Others slammed the campaign online. “You realize kids ride the subway in NYC right? imagine having to explain ‘pansexual’ ‘S&M’ or ‘submissive’ to a curious, impressionable child who is too young to understand those concepts properly?” one tweeted at the company, which did not reply.
MTA spokesperson Eugene Resnick told The Post: “The MTA is subject to the First Amendment, which limits the restrictions that may be placed on which ads to accept. There is a review process for subway advertisements, the OkCupid ads went through that process and were determined not to violate MTA guidelines.”
The agency has rejected anti-abortion ads in the past. The MTA refused to disclose how much it made from the OkCupid ads.
OkCupid’s chief marketing officer, Melissa Hobley, said “many” had contacted the company to praise the ad campaign.
“A much smaller few have had shockingly vitriolic reactions to it,” she added, “but these reactions only serve to make it even more clear that we must continue to champion people who are historically underrepresented. Whether you’re a nonbinary person, an environmentalist, a vaccine advocate, or all of the above, you deserve to find what you’re looking for on OkCupid.”