The Tinder U Swipe Off competition is back for its second year, promising a concert from popular rapper Juice WRLD to the college that gets the most right-swipes on the online dating app Tinder.
The University of Massachusetts won the competition in 2018, earning a concert from rapper Cardi B at the Mullins Center.
This year’s competitions, titled “East vs. West,” began on March 29 with 100 colleges pitted against each other, a 36-school increase from last year’s 64, for a chance to win a free concert with Juice WRLD and Charli XCX.
A new component with this year’s contest was a broader rivalry between the east and west coast colleges. There were four rounds at the start of April and the winner will be determined on April 10 at 9 a.m., with a concert set for April 24. Students at the colleges must be enrolled in the Tinder U feature of the dating app, and the school with an accumulation of the most right-swipes will get a free concert.
The Tinder blog announced the competition and artist on March 26.
“Let’s rock this. Maybe this isn’t your first rodeo—it certainly isn’t ours, but it’s a new year, new you and a new payoff that even your most lucid creams couldn’t imagine,” the blog read. “With even more schools fighting for a change to bring home one of the hottest artists for an exclusive convert—the competition is as fierce as the price.”
The post alludes to one of Juice WRLD’s most popular songs “Lucid Dreams” with over 700 million streams on Spotify. Other popular songs by the artist include “Robbery” with over 104 million streams, “Fast” with over 43 million streams and “Armed and Dangerous” with over 149 million streams.
“Yo whats good y’all, this is Juice WRLD and I’m teaming up with Tinder for Swipe Off,” he said in a promotional video posted onto Tinder’s Facebook page. “Basically, the school that has the most right-swipes gets a concert from yours truly, me, Juice WRLD. Sign up for Tinder and get started right away. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.”
UMass made it to the finals with nine other east coast universities, including American University, Boston University and Fordham University, but ultimately lost going into the championships. Stanford and Fordham universities will be pitted against each other from the west and east coast respectively along with Cornell University against University of California, San Diego.
Many UMass students lacked any knowledge about the second installment of the competition or who Juice WRLD was. But others, once finding out about the competition while UMass was still in it, were prompted to interact.
Junior psychology major Sam Kakullavarapu was eager to take part.
“He’s talented,” she said. “I would do it. If I could do it now sitting in my bed, I would.”
“I’m going to re-download for Juice WRLD,” said Sindhura Devalaraja, an anthropology and philosophy junior. “I’d love for UMass to win again, just to show what we’re about here at UMass.”
Before the championship round, Brendan O’Sullivan, a finance sophomore, believed that UMass had a good chance at winning; “because our student base gets behind things, we’re passionate about. [I] hope to go back to back.”
Although UMass didn’t make it into the next round, some students weren’t that surprised, chalking it up to a general lack of interest in Juice WRLD.
Public health senior Sorvena Yoyo said, “We won for Cardi, so I guess the interest wasn’t there.”
Fellow public health student, Divine Kamba agreed with Yoyo’s statement and added, “We wouldn’t have enjoyed Juice WRLD.”
Bonnie Chen can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @BonnieChenn.
Alvin Buyinza • Apr 10, 2019 at 1:59 am
Oh no however will we live without Juice WRLD.
Get Beyonce at UMass then we’ll talk.