Busted and unstable

• This post was denied by the upper management at the Adult FriendFinder HQ, therefore, hidden from view in the AFF blogs

A fellow blogger sent me an email checking up on me after hearing about the earthquake. We started talking about how Blogsville was a Community (which it totally is) and how the Dating side leaves much to be desired. We got to talking about marketing, and apparently, the ads for AFF says to "just ask to fuck." Da fuq?? Seriously?!

So I got curious and opened a private window, wondering if any ads will pop out. Before that, I saw some threads on Reddit, and stumbled across an article by Mashable. It was an interesting read, and proved that marketing blatantly lies.

Here are some content pulled from the article:

Article title: AdultFriendFinder is a borderline-porn hookup site that's stuck in the past

It's equal parts sex and spam

AdultFriendFinder is not what it sounds like.

The rowdy feed of matches, jumble of explicit photos, and stimulating calls-to-action offering all types of sex makes it heaven for anyone looking for a good time with no filter — and hell for someone who wouldn't be caught dead clicking on a "There are hot singles in your area" ad.

Even if you're not using it for real sex, it's always nice to have spank bank material in your back pocket.

Is it worth $20-something per month? Depends on how much fishy content you're willing to overlook for a juicy sexting session.

The business development executive told us that "there's a two to one ratio of single men versus categories like single women, couples, and groups." (now we ALL know that's a crock of shit!! )

AdultFriendFinder is basically like a PornHub that you can interact with.

Once you get past the in-your-face sexplosion of naked profile pictures, horny AIM-era profile names, and explicit videos, there are actually an impressive number of resources to help make your experience as satisfying as possible. Some will cost money even outside of the paid subscription, which is kind of dumb.

What was once a hot site that a few Reddit users were quick to hype up is now one of the dating sites that Reddit users can't help but diss — in the few instances that AFF is even being discussed at all. It's notable that, on a site where online dating is such a mammoth topic of discussion, AdultFriendFinder has rarely been mentioned in a positive light since the early 2010s.

However, some Reddit members have praised AFF as a site for men meeting men. Even so, the site's still buggy and isn't exactly great for meeting real people who aren't, as one Reddit user so eloquently put it, "busted and unstable."

This site is not for the faint of heart — if you're a cynic, conservative by any means, get sketched out easily, or aren't a fan of dick pics, you'll probably hate it. Similarly, if you appreciate a well-crafted, aesthetically-pleasing website that feels safe — no matter how badly you want to have sex — one glance at the landing page likely signals that it's not for you.

AdultFriendFinder is not the place to be if you're trying to make friends unless "with benefits" is tacked onto the end. Every inch of the site screams "this website is used to have sex," and you should really listen to that.

Toward the end, the articles does give some sage advice, but unfortunately, the executives are all thinking with their little heads, even ones who don't have little heads.

AFF could do so much more to make people take it seriously

The entire website looks like an ad about hot MILFs that pops up when you're illegally streaming a movie. Seriously, it's bad. Even though the website is technically legit, the pictures, word choice, and exclamation points everywhere scream "scam." No, AdultFriendFinder, "98,897,765 Hot Photos" is not the way to make potential new users trust you.

Genitals are quite literally in your face from the moment you make an account, and that's just not cute. There are chiller ways to go about insinuating that this is a hookup website without feeling like you're trapped in a sex dungeon with strangers.

I could not get past the fact that the entire site looks like it's about to invite five viruses to your computer. We're talking terrible graphics that look like they were made on Microsoft Paint and pictures of women who look like they're from P in 2007. (That's when AdultFriendFinder was officially sold and rebranded from its original parent company.)

The parade of women on the landing page is questionable for two reasons. This shouldn't even need to be clarified, but not everyone is looking for a woman. At the least, the advertising isn't inclusive — but this crosses into fetishization territory. The cherry on top is that the women in the photos (unsurprisingly) probably aren't even members of the site, according to a disclaimer at the bottom of the landing page.

Attempting to navigate the shoddy design might be enough to smother your horniness. Three main issues can make the site borderline unusable: It looks shady as hell, an alarming portion of the user base is made up of bots and spam accounts, and the user interface itself is outdated and rife with bugs.

For a site that claims to have over 50 million visitors each month, the lack of accessibility to a smartphone app is just plain odd — especially in 2023.

Adding to the sketchiness, a network hack in 2016 exposed around 412 million accounts, including "deleted" accounts that weren't actually deleted from the database. Signing up with a burner email and avoiding using your real name as a username are wise moves (pick a naughty word and add 69 to the end, IDK). (the usernames with the rm＿ prefix we see cropping up every now and then could possibly be from this data dump and these profiles don't go through the review process since they were already approved about a decade ago, so if the credentials still work, the scammers have an in)

The final verdict

It's not that a site dedicated to sex and sexting is inherently scammy — it's that AdultFriendFinder drowns you with explicit photos on profiles that might not even be real people while asking you to pay for a subscription with every click.

The functionality and safety of the site and the mobile app aren't where they need to be in 2023. If security measures were tightened, graphics and photos were cleaned up to feel more relevant, and decision-makers behind the scenes were given a lesson in inclusivity and pronouns/identities, AdultFriendFinder could be a handy tool to find attachment-free hookups and connect with a community that's down for anything.

Mind you, this is a relatively recent article, as you can see it mentions its lack of functionality in 2023.

We all know how thin-skinned the management is about members saying negative things about the site in our blogs. What do they think about these articles that are read by a much wider audience?

If you'd like to read the full article, here's the link: https://mashable.com/review/adult-friend-finder-review-dating-site.

Originally posted on AFF January 3, 2024