Blog & Series

Articles on personal ads, swipe app fatigue, and text-first dating, plus a four-part investigative series on the return of the personal ad.

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Four-Part Investigative Series
The Return of the Personal Ad
What disappeared when Craigslist shut Personals in 2018, how the format rebuilt itself across queer apps, newsletters, and newspaper holdouts, and why the mainstream press started noticing in 2024.
Part I When the Internet Lost Its Personal Ads
October 2023
 Part II They Never Really Died
April 2024
 Part III After the Swipe: Why We’re Drifting Back to Words
December 2024
 Epilogue Old Is New Again
August 2025

Editorial

Essays

Cultural and practical pieces on personal ads, dating apps, and what the current moment in dating looks like.

May 2026
The Best Craigslist Personals Alternatives in 2026
Craigslist Personals shut down in 2018. Here’s what made it work, what it didn’t do well, and what the best alternatives look like now.
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May 2026
How to Get More Replies to Your Personal Ad
Posted and heard nothing? See whether anyone is actually viewing your ad, and how to write one that gets answered.
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March 2026
Personal Ads Are Back, and Everyone Is Noticing
The New York Times, Today, and New York Magazine have all covered the same story. Here’s what they found and why it makes sense.
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March 2025
Personal Ads vs. Swipe Dating Apps: What’s the Difference?
They’re not stylistic variations on the same product. They’re fundamentally different formats with different strengths and different assumptions about how people should find each other.
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A Series

Notes from the Road
Personals, City by City
Sam is working through one city at a time, across the United States and then overseas, looking at how personals actually work in each place. Start with the introduction, then follow along city by city.
New York Personal Ads for New York City
November 2025
 Los Angeles Personal Ads for Los Angeles
December 2025
 Chicago Personal Ads for Chicago
January 2026
 Miami Personal Ads for Miami
February 2026
 Austin Personal Ads for Austin
March 2026
 Sydney Personal Ads for Sydney
April 2026
 London Personal Ads for London
May 2026

Community

For the Community

Personal ads for kink, ENM, and poly, and how AseeksB fits alongside the communities people already belong to.

November 2025
Personal Ads for Kink, ENM, and Poly
Write what you want in your own words, use role tags, and browse with intent in a moderated, text-first app.
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December 2025
FetLife and AseeksB
FetLife is where much of the kink community already lives. AseeksB is the focused personals piece: post clearly, connect one to one. Use both.
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Coming From Another Site

Sites You May Have Known

If a personals site you used has shut down or stopped feeling like itself, here is what a modern version looks like.

May 2025
Sites Like Doublelist
The personal ad, rebuilt: text-first, mobile, moderated, and free to start on iOS and Android.
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June 2025
After the Old Classifieds
What the old classified personals got right, what they got wrong, and what a safer, moderated, text-first version looks like now.
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AseeksB is free on iOS and Android.

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