You can match with a sexually transmitted infection on Tinder
UPDATE: April 5, 2016, 5:34 p.m. AEST: The Gay News Network drew attention to some profiles in the campaign referencing AIDS in a way that it said is "stigmatising, misinformed and downright offensive." Mashable Australia has reached out to HERO Condoms for comment. The profiles in question did not run in our original story.
While a terrible Tinder date is pretty likely, it'd suck if a decent rendezvous turns bad -- thanks to a sexually transmitted infection (STI) ruining everything.
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A clever campaign in Australia is using Tinder to raise awareness of safe sex and STIs. These infections are on the rise in the country, contracted primarily through casual, unprotected sexual encounters that apps like this have become well known for.
You could match with 21-year-old Chlaramydia (geddit?) reminding you of pain and inflammation, who wants you to know if you can't handle her at her worst, you sure won't like "Doc forcing a 10 inch swizzle stick into your pee pee." Fair enough.
If you are into boys, you can also meet up with Herpez, who apart from liking Seinfeld enjoys contagious blister outbreaks. These herpes are making me itchy.
The campaign is a collaboration between HERO Condoms and Straya Cash artist Aaron Tyler, who created 10 fake Tinder profiles -- five male, five female -- modelled after common STIs.
The lovelorn people on Tinder could meet Aydes, Gonnorheeta, Herpez and Sydphillis, which are up for a chat as they are manned by real people behind the profile. It's still better than those Russian spam bots, we guess.
The profile pictures aren't of real people, however. Tyler compiled selfies from all around the world and put their facial features together in Photoshop, before sprucing them up with the app Facetune and using filters on Instagram to give that authentic online dating profile picture look.
Even though they aren't real, there are genuine Tinder users who swiped right to STIs. Some were confused because they just wanted to cut to the chase. Others quickly figured out what was going on.
According to HERO Condoms, 100 connections were made in the first 48 hours, creating amusing but informational one-on-one conversations about preventable sexually transmitted infections.
Although these Tinder crushes may never be requited -- at least they'll know to slip one on next time they do get lucky.
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