From The New York Times:
One More Thing Goes to the Web: Subway Ogling By Austin Considine
As a personal trainer, Ed Norman knows he has good biceps. But he didn’t realize they had their own secret admirers until he rode the London Underground earlier this year.
Thanks to a Web-trawling friend, Mr. Norman, 27, learned that his photo had been taken surreptitiously on the Underground and posted on a new Web site, TubeCrush.net, under the title “Popeye Guns!” There he was (“Popeye”) in a black T-shirt with bulging arm muscles, reading a newspaper.
Mr. Norman, who lives and works in London, was checking e-mail in bed with his girlfriend when he got the flattering news. “I think she was a little more freaked out about it than I was,” he said.
Equal parts photo blog, personal ad and online stalking tool, TubeCrush was started in London last spring as a place for Underground riders to upload and share photos of men on the train who caught their eye. (Yes, only men.)
Stephen Motion, 30, a sales manager, said he and his roommates started the site for fun. Within a few months, the press had seized on it, and the site was receiving thousands of unique visits daily.
The natural next step was New York. In July, they announced that they had created an M.T.A. version, SubwayCrush.net. Mr. Motion said it has 4,000 to 28,000 unique visits a day. Next year, the founders plan to add photos of women and a means for crushes to independently connect with admirers.
In some ways, the TubeCrush concept is the 21st-century incarnation of a lost variety of printed personal ad, in which people wrote seeking connection with that attractive regular at the bus stop or cafe. In 2000, Craigslist introduced its own free version, called Missed Connections, and it was only a matter of time before photos entered the mix, the perfection of the camera phone having made stealth photography especially easy. To unsuspecting subjects, an admiring photographer is as likely to be checking e-mail as snapping a shutter.Read the rest of the article here.
And a sample:
Date: 16th January 2012
Line: Northern
Submitted by: MotioS
This crush’ee certainly is one for those tall, dark and handsome admirers. He looks a little startled as he realises his picture is being taken! Either that or he is chuckling at a comedy podcast of Michael McIntyre. Which do you think it is? Hmmm