Somehow I Got on a Celeb Dating App?
I'm about to ruin the mystique for some people.
A while back, I got accepted to Raya. Yes, that Raya. The celebrity dating app. The "you have to know someone who knows someone who knows someone" dating app. The one that supposedly only accepts 8% of applicants.
To that statistic, I have just one question: ...are we sure? Because somehow I got in, and while I'd love to pretend I'm some mysterious, unattainable enigma, I think we all know that's probably not the case.
When I got the acceptance email, though? I was absolutely buzzing. Suddenly my brain was writing scenarios faster than I could keep up with them. What if I matched with an actor? Or an athlete? Or a musician? Maybe I'd meet the love of my life who just so happened to have a Wikipedia page. It felt like I'd finally gotten invited behind the velvet rope to see what all the hype was about.
It's Basically Instagram With Commitment Issues
And I'll admit, for the first few days, it was exciting. Every few swipes I'd recognize someone from a movie or a TV show, or realize I'd somehow ended up looking at the profile of someone with millions of Instagram followers. There are actors, athletes, musicians, startup founders, influencers, and every variety of attractive person you can imagine. It's basically a weird game of "Wait... isn't that...?" disguised as a dating app.
The problem is that once the novelty wears off, you're left with... well, a dating app.
And somehow, in my experience, an even worse one than your classic Tinder or Hinge.
Part of it is the cost. The basic membership is around $25 a month, and that's before you get into the more expensive memberships with extra features. Paying a monthly subscription to get ignored feels like a bold business model, but apparently it's working for someone.
The bigger issue, though, is that nobody seemed to actually talk. I'd swipe on my celebrity crush, a handful of people I genuinely thought were cute, immediately run out of likes for the day, and then come back tomorrow to repeat the process. On the rare occasion I'd match with someone, the conversation usually never started—or ended after two messages.
The Weird Thing About Exclusivity
Now, maybe that's on me. Maybe I'm chopped. Maybe I'm unc, as the kids are saying these days. Maybe my profile just wasn't giving what it needed to give and honestly that’s so fine.
But honestly, I think Raya suffers from the same problem every dating app does: everyone is convinced there's someone even better waiting one swipe away. Except on Raya, that feeling is amplified because everyone has bought into the idea that they're in this exclusive club. When everyone believes they're surrounded by the most eligible people on the planet, no one seems particularly motivated to invest in the person right in front of them.
That's what surprised me the most. I expected the exclusivity to make the experience feel different. Instead, it just felt like social media with a monthly subscription fee. Everyone has beautiful photos. Everyone looks interesting. Everyone is quietly looking at everyone else. And somehow, despite all these supposedly incredible people being in one place, it felt less social than any other dating app I'd used.
I don't regret joining. It gave me a funny story, satisfied my curiosity, and proved that celebrities also take aggressively curated vacation photos just like the rest of us. But if you're sitting on the waitlist convinced that getting accepted is going to unlock some magical dating experience, I'd probably temper your expectations.
Sometimes the fantasy of getting into the exclusive club is a lot more exciting than actually being inside it.
Turns out the velvet rope wasn't hiding anything revolutionary after all—it was just hiding another dating app.
