Likealittle.com has been discovered by its mass audience of college students.
Different shades of blue adorn the simple website’s homepage. The purple and gold colors of San Francisco State University draw attention. The top has a Facebook “share” and a “like” tab, showing the users how many people like the website and if they want to post something to their wall about the website they can. The social media site is sparking conversations. It has hit the SFSU campus and is grabbing attention.
With a growing audience of 6,791 Facebook likes according to its website, LikeALittle.com is a social media outlet gaining user support. Multiple campuses across the nation have already adopted the Like A Little website to their schools. It is specifically designed for college students to connect with one another in a new flirty way through the internet.
The site has over 50 colleges and universities represented on Like ALittle.com. The three co-founders are Evan Reas, Prasanna Sankaranarayanan and Shubham Mittal. They run and maintain the site; also they are looking to spread to more colleges, according to Reas.
“The purpose is to facilitate location-based communication...specifically helping people to flirt with people around them in a very comfortable way, getting rid of the fear of rejection and awkwardness,” said Reas, 24.
A team is specifically targeted for each campus, Zoe Nguyen, Beau Noonan and Austin Frischer are the founding members of the SFSU chapter found at http://www.likealittle.com/sfsu/. According to Nguyen, the SFSU team monitors the SFSU Like A Little site by ensuring no one is harassing each other, the users stick to the rules and help spread the word on campus.
“All of the credit goes to Evan. He was inspired to start this because of all the difficulty he personally encountered in school being shy,” said 18-year-old Nguyen. “I'm just the founder of the SFSU website, and promotion of the page.”
The website itself is easy to maneuver. LikeALittle.com is targeted to bring college students together in a way never before explored. With the help of a social media outlet, students are connecting with the people they are interested in by posting a comment about where they saw them, their gender and describing the person. Students that comment each post are given a fruit name; this ensures the person asking the questions stays anonymous.
“I think the website is really interesting and I find it very entertaining to know who and what people actually are thinking about. Others just pass by each other at school and have no idea of the other person’s feelings,” said SFSU sophomore Candace Masaquel, 19.
SFSU sophomore Megan Melstein, 19, said, “I saw a few of my friends liked it on Facebook. I looked at it and I’ve never seen this before, at first I didn’t know what it was but then I saw people were describing people they’ve seen on campus. The comments were talking about how cute the people they saw were and how they wanted to meet them. It’s an interesting way to start dating.”
An actual LikeALittle.com post from November 23, 2010 at 10:41 p.m.:
At MWH4 (Mary Ward Hall 4th Floor): Male, Brunette. NICK JONAS LOOK ALIKE! i literally see you everywhere riding your bike. the only reason why i know you live on the 4th floor is cuz i live in MWH and see you in the elevator all the time. i wanna talk to you but i think you might have a girlfriend =[
The main purpose of the site is for students to flirt and talk to one another through a post.
“I hope people will meet each other through random chance and emotion. This site has the potential to eliminate pre-prejudices between men and women. It has the capability of starting and connecting random people through one simple comment,” said SFSU founding member Beau Noonan, 20.
Some students have found posts describing them, with different reactions about the posts they have seen.
“I honestly felt flattered and I was glad that it wasn't anything that was sexual or demeaning but actually something that was sweet and thoughtful,” said Masaquel. “It just said I had a nice smile and I was amazing…rather than most posts, it was very kind.”
Justine Ling, 18, SFSU freshman said,” I thought it was weird and creepy that someone posted a comment about me. They described me exactly and where I work on campus.”
There are some posts that are under the website’s NO category. Bullying, sexual harassment, sexist comments and negative messages are not allowed on the site. If found, the Like A Little website asks the readers to delete them or report them to keep the site safe.
“For harassment, we basically have five moderators that sign onto the page regularly as administrators. That gives us the capability to delete any comments or posts we find inappropriate. We have some trolls here and there but it isn't unmanageable,” said Nguyen.
Likealittle.com has had success with bringing people together.
“…the other day someone, I don't even speak to, used the site as a conversation starter to flirt with me, which was awkward but interesting. I’ve seen a lot of posts where people who think its describing them, will actually comment their dorm number or have their friends release their name. I know of one girl who went on a date with another girl this past weekend as a result, and I'm excited to hear how that turned out,” said Nguyen.
Noonan said, “A comment was posted about my friend through a party, and she eats at a cafe at our school regularly. They got to talking and now are friends with potential.”
For those who have questions about the site, whether it’s getting involved to be an intern or any other questions or concerns, email to contact Evan Reas at evan.reas@gmail.com.
The site is gaining popularity by the day, as seen on the website’s homepage. As for the future, the SFSU chapter of LikeALittle.com has been planning on promoting the site to gain more interest. Some ideas include a Masquerade party or possible video chatting. According to Nguyen, the plan is to beat Boston University with 2,500 likes for the school.
“I hope people will actually connect offline. We have heard of dozens of couples who have already gotten together and we want to continuously facilitate that and just be a place where people can express themselves,” said Reas.
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