(Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)

It’s been a good couple of years for hate, the human emotion that never seems to go out of style. From helping you scream at idiots in traffic, to inspiring social-media careers and presidential executive orders, hate is the one thing we all have in common. But there’s no bigger bummer than meeting someone who seems great, but who fails to hate the right things (i.e., the stuff you hate), or hates something you think is awesome.


A new dating app is looking to fix that romantic stumbling block. Like most dating programs, Hater sounds like it was invented for a comedy sketch; unlike its ilk, that’s because it was. According to creator Brendan Alper, “The more I thought about it, the more I thought ‘Hey, even though this was a funny idea, it actually makes a lot of sense.’” The app—which officially launches February 8—presents users with 2,000 topics that they can say they love, hate, like, dislike, or feel totally neutral on, then matches people up by grouping them by their mutual dislikes. It’s a frankly brilliant idea, eliminating those awkward second date moments when Mr. Right reveals himself as intolerable monster by telling you that he doesn’t like Parks & Rec.

It even has some scientific backing: The Cut dug up a scientific study from some psychologists that showed that people are more likely to bond over shared hates than shared likes. Hate: Bringing people together, for good and (really, really) bad, since basically forever.