The Tomato

Love is alive and getting Zucced. Image: Dasser Kamran/Fulcrum
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Enter for a chance at love (and to eat at the Olive Garden)!

The marketing team behind Facebook Dating has decided to host a special contest to help celebrate Valentine’s Day, as well as further promote their service.

Redd Rozes, a social media marketing intern at Facebook Dating, and the rest of his team decided to host a special contest on Facebook to attract more users — and give away free condoms.

“Basically, it’s a horror date contest,” said Rozes. “People will submit their worst date stories, and we’ll judge to see who had the worst! It’s fun laughing at embarrassing times, and if you’re still not over it … enter for the prizes.”

There’s one entry per Facebook user and there will be three selected winners. Each winner will receive an Olive Garden gift certificate for two and one year’s access to Facebook Dating’s premium features, such as viewing highly compatible matches and blocking bots.

“Actually, we could only afford gift certificates for kids in our budgets, but they give a lot of spaghetti to little kids,” clarified Rozes. “We’re also providing a lifetime supply of condoms to each winner.”

“We did a partnership with Durex for our launch in 2018 and we significantly underestimated attendance. They’re just sitting in my cubicle because I’m the newest team member. I think it’s a hazing thing.”

Di Daniels, a fourth-year environmental studies student, has submitted to the contest over 12 times, each with one of her friend’s different Facebook accounts.

“I think I’ve had more bad dates than good and I like gift certificates, so why not?” said Daniels. “One time a guy tried to dine and dash, but got diarrhea so he couldn’t even dash.”

When asked if she used Facebook Dating, Daniels went into a laughing fit and said that she “didn’t know it was a real thing.”

“Is one of the premium features not sending my internet activity to advertisers? Because I’d honestly pay anything to not see another ad of a maid costume.”