MAGENTA MAGAZINE – Nov 14 – Alexandra Tweten started Instagram account, Bye Felipe, that outs creeps for their bad online-dating behaviors. She posts screenshots submitted by women who have been harassed by men on dating apps. Since Bye Felipe's creation four years ago, Tweten has amassed 500K followers. She also wrote a book Bye Felipe.
Q: Where did you originally get the idea for Bye Felipe?
A: It was October 2014, and I was in a Facebook group for women in L.A. One woman posted a screenshot of a message she had received on OkCupid. I started the Instagram as a joke just for me and my friends to make fun of these guys. Two weeks later, Olga Khazan at the Atlantic found it and asked to interview me. After her article came out, it blew up from there.
Q: Have you ever found success in online dating, personally?
A: Yes, I've met a lot of really great guys; I was in a relationship with someone I met on OkCupid for 2 ½ years. The point of Bye Felipe has never been to encourage women not to do online dating.
Q: How did you approach creating a book from an Instagram account?
A: I got the idea for the book pretty shortly after the Instagram took off. It took me two years to finish the proposal, and then another year to write and publish it.
Q: What did you want your big takeaway for women to be when they finished reading?
A: Don't take online dating too seriously. Have fun, and let it go.
The full article was originally published at Magneta Magazine, but is no longer available.