Decoder Ring | “Videomate: Men” (Encore)

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Videomate: Men was a VHS tape released in 1987 featuring 60 single men pitching themselves as dates to women on the other side of the TV screen: “The love of your life could be on your TV tonight!” the box reads. In retrospect, Videomate: Men is a bizarre and hilarious time capsule, but at the time it was one of many manifestations of what was known as video dating. To find out how anyone thought this was a good idea, Decoder Ring examines the weird and forgotten world of video dating in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s to find out why video dating once seemed like the future—and if that future is still yet to come. On this episode, originally released in 2019, we talk to the creators of the Found Footage Fest, VHS collectors who unleashed Videomate on the internet; ask the creators of video dating services like Videomate’s Steve Dworman and Great Expectations’ Jeffrey Ullman what they were thinking; and talk to participants who used these services but not necessarily in the way that was intended. We’ll also discuss the future of video dating with Coffee Meets Bagel co-founder Dawoon Kang and former host of The Longest Shortest Time Andrea Silenzi. This episode was written by Willa Paskin and was produced and edited by Benjamin Frisch. We had research assistance from Cleo Levin. Decoder Ring is produced by Katie Shepherd, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected], or leave a message on the Decoder Ring hotline at 347-460-7281. We love to hear any and all of your ideas for the show. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Willa. We have an only but a goodie for you today. It's an episode we did about dating and specifically about video dating. In the 1980s, video dating was a real thing. People would record themselves onto VHS tapes for various dating services. And this episode starts with one such video. It is very funny and great to this day. But as the internet arrive,
0:23.2	video dating went out of fashion. And it stayed out of fashion ever since. Even though videos
0:29.4	tell you so much about a person, and obviously it is now very easy to share videos. And so this
0:36.4	episode asks, why? Why don't we video date? The answer is one
0:41.8	that I've thought about a bunch over the years because it's not specific to video dating or even
0:46.7	dating. It's about how risky it is to be vulnerable and all the things we will forego that we might
0:52.9	love just to avoid that risk. This episode first aired all the way we will forego that we might love just to avoid that risk.
0:55.5	This episode first aired all the way back in 2018,
0:58.3	a couple of months before TikTok arrived in the U.S. actually.
1:01.9	And plenty of the specifics about dating apps and video apps have changed since it aired.
1:07.6	But I think the overall takeaway still stands, and I hope you enjoy it.
1:19.4	In 1987, Blockbuster Video Stores in Southern California were doing a brisk business renting
1:25.8	dirty dancing and alien, full metal jacket,
1:28.7	and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But up at the counter, next to the Red Vines and the M&Ms, there
1:34.0	were usually some other VHS tapes for sale, the kind of niche titles and curiosities a person
1:39.6	might buy on Impulse. One of them, priced at 2995 and with a runtime of 90 minutes, promised footage
1:48.0	of 60 single men, all looking for dates. The love of your life could be on your TV tonight,
1:53.9	it said on the box. It was called Video Mate, men. Are you a little crazy? Do you like to laugh a lot?
2:01.6	Do you like to take long walks along the beach or drive along the ocean with the top down?
2:06.6	Boy, have I got a guy for you?
2:09.6	He's warm, passionate, very honest.
2:13.6	Who's this wonderful person you're asking yourself?
	...

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