Weeks after announcing its sale to AI image-generator Midjourney, astrology app Co-Star revealed it’s launching a dating app for book lovers called Readme.
First reported on Sept. 4 in journalist Emily Sundberg’s newsletter, Feed Me, Readme (unrelated to Feed Me) is for “people who read (or want to date people who read).” It’s the brainchild of Co-Star’s founder and CEO, Banu Guler, and strategist and cultural analyst Emily Segal. Guler shared the news on X on Tuesday:
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“Obviously everyone knows that existing dating app culture is profoundly broken,” Segal told Sundberg. Dating app fatigue and cynicism are well-documented, but while many singles are sick of the apps, they don’t know where else to turn.
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“Readme emerged from a running observation between me and Banu, that even though our friends were constantly in bookstores, we never actually saw anyone have that meme-famous ‘meet cute at a bookstore’ experience,” Segal continued.
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The two realized they could create something themselves that would mimic that experience, and believe that someone’s taste in books tells you a lot more about their true spirit “than an awkwardly workshopped line on a conventional dating app profile.” (Segal recently coined the term “tasteslop,” which has a three-pronged definition: Slop made out of things considered tasteful; Tasteful things deployed in service of slop; and repeated discussion in the tech world about the significance of taste.)
Segal told Sundberg that Co-Star users have wanted a dating app, but that astrology, which is Co-Star’s main focus, “is only one piece of the puzzle.”
It’s unclear how the cosmos will play into Readme, but considering it’s an offshoot of one of the most well-known astrology apps, it’d be surprising if the zodiac was absent. And fans of Co-Star have claimed the app has “read them to filth,” so the name might be a nod to that. Whether AI will factor into the app is also in question, given that Midjourney now owns Co-Star.
The launch party is happening this week, where surely more details will be revealed.
