Tinder is a vast expanse of lonely millennials looking for some form of connection, offering the promise of either a one-night stand with a total stranger or the promise of everlasting love (or at the very least, someone to get brunch with). Out of the millions of eligible bachelors using the app in New York City, I was lucky enough to match with Martin Shkreli, aka one of the most hated men in America. Or perhaps I was unlucky. I'm not sure yet.
Shkreli is better known as the AIDS drug bro, or the guy who tried to raise the price of the drug Daraprim, which is used to help manage AIDS patients' symptoms, from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Needless to say, he was publicly shamed by most media sources for this, with the Daily Beast declaring him "Big Pharma's biggest asshole."
What Shkreli did was not exceptional: As the New Yorker points out, jacking up drug prices is completely legal and many drug companies do it. Perhaps this price-gouging didn't go unnoticed, as it usually does, because Shkreli himself is so tailor-made for viral infamy. He's a fan of emo music, he once offered to pay an ex-girlfriend $10,000 to eat her out and he sent the following letter to an employee's wife: "I hope to see you and your four children homeless and will do whatever I can to assure this." His story went viral in large part because he is the perfect media punching bag, the Big Pharma bro we all love to hate.
So when I saw his face pop up in my Tinder matches, I had to swipe right, especially because I had just written an article mocking his OkCupid account. I immediately knew it was him, although his profile description, "American entrepreneur," was a little vague.