Tinder — Campus — The Kumquat

Sophomore sports management major Kyle Mayer was pleasantly surprised Monday afternoon when he walked into Bird library to find his group photo Tinder match, exactly as he had left them.

“It was amazing,” he said. “I had just swiped right Sunday night, and there they were. I didn’t even care which one was Ally.”

When asked to comment, Ally’s Tinder group photo said simultaneously, “We do everything together! These girls are my best friends!” They then giggled.

Later that day, Mayer saw them again, but realized the group didn’t recognize him. The girls were too busy whispering secrets and playing with each other’s hair.

Mayer, discouraged, could only look on with admiration.

“There they were, heads cocked, arms intertwined. Their hair, blowing in the wind. If only they could love me like they love each other…their hearts set in stone.”

While girls at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry have been described as “down to earth,” directly comparing them to trees is an entirely new concept.

Branchout, a new social networking site for ESF students, allows guys to properly express their feelings about women by comparing them to trees and plants.

Modeled after the popular and degrading app Lulu, Branchout allows men to rate women by answering a series of prompts. Prime examples include: “Does this girl smell more like a sub-alpine fir, cattails, or a ginko tree?” and “If John Muir walked by this girl, he would…

A) sample her needles,

B) turn her sap into syrup to pour on his pancakes,

C) write a poem about her, or

D) make boards out her in order to build his cabin.”

The app then compiles the answers and gives girls a ratings on a scale of 1 to 10.

Branchout also allows male users to choose from hashtags to accurately describe their female specimen, or create their own.

John Prescott, a junior at ESf, developed “#coveredinlichen,” to describe girls who don’t shave.

Prescott said he wasn’t surprised at all when this hashtag became viral in the ESF community. He’s currently working on a new hashtag, “#belongsinthegreenhouse” for girls who are “immature” or who “just haven’t bloomed yet.”

When asked about how they felt, girls at ESF don’t seem bothered by this new social media phenomenon. Brooke McKenzie, a wildlife science major, affirmed her peers by saying, “In a world where women are often treated like objects, I would much rather be treated like a tree.”