Whoever knew dating apps and political campaigns would not work well together?
Well, apparently this guy didn’t know. Meet Greggor Ilagan…
Tinder is usually a place for “friends, dates, relationships and everything in between”. But definitely not for politics. Actually, we’d go as far as saying avoid it at all cost.
But this 29-year-old councilman from Puna, Hawaii decided to sign up in a bid to drum up more support for his campaign trail and as you’d probably expect, it didn’t go well… at all.
He’s running for the District 2 Hawaii State Senate and crafted a misguided Tinder profile to get chatting with would-be voters.
It said:
Hey you! Help me make a positive difference in our community. Swipe right and let’s talk. I bet we can find common ground on issues and make a positive impact around us. Swipe right and let’s get to know each other.
Ultimate cringefest. He set out to connect with both men and women, in the hope he’d make a marked improvement on his campaign. However, because it’s obviously just a dating app, it didn’t really go to plan. But he did get asked out on a lot of dates… silver lining?
Speaking to Honolulu Civil Beat he said:
Because it’s a dating site, there were actually a lot of guys that were hitting on me. I was always having to direct people back to the main focus.They asked me, ‘Oh, can I have a date?’ And I said, ‘Well, we can have a meeting and we can talk about government and maybe you can help out on the campaign.’
Once reality set in though, the young politician did what a lot of us would do after a piss poor tinder date and deleted the app from his phone.
He added:
I thought the one-on-one interaction would be great, but it just leads to other things. Now I know why people don’t campaign on it.Tinder just has a different environment and different expectation. I learned the hard way.
Lesson learned. Dating apps and political campaigns= not a match made in heaven.
