When Lox Club burst onto the dating app scene in 2020 as the app “for Jews with ridiculously high standards,” I was intrigued. Like other “exclusive” dating apps such as Raya and The League, Lox Club requires an application to get in. It boasted a 20,000 person waitlist earlier this year, according to a spokesperson at the time.

Lox Club lured me in a way that other membership-based apps or Jewish dating apps like JDate and JSwipe didn’t. This was partly for the promise of matches with similar life and cultural experiences (the name instantly reminded me of my mom topping her schmeared bagels with lox). But let’s be real: It was also the chic branding and the “ridiculously high standards” attitude.

Perhaps those latter reasons, too, are why non-Jewish people are applying — and why Lox Club has paid at least one non-Jewish influencer to promote it.

Either way, Lox Club appears to be using its branding as both Jewish and exclusive to draw people in. But that tagline? Flimsy at best, disingenuous at worst.

Non-Jewish #sponcon

Katy Bellotte, a lifestyle influencer, isn’t Jewish, but she first heard about Lox Club through Jewish friends. She was under the impression that only Jews could apply until recently.

“It made me want to join even more,” Bellotte told Mashable, due to the air of mystery and exclusivity.

Then she started hearing “rumors” that it was “opening up” to non-Jews.

Friends of friends who worked with the app connected her with the team, and she realized that she could indeed sign up. Lox Club has always allowed non-Jewish members, but Bellotte didn’t realize until that time because, well, look at the branding.

She started using the app, and Lox Club reached out to her to produce a paid Instagram ad. In the promo, she encouraged her more than 170,000 followers to apply to attend Lox Club’s New York Fashion Week party and try out the service.

Katy Bellotte promoting Lox Club in an Instagram ad.

Credit: screenshot: instagram

Bellotte sharing details about Lox Club’s NYFW party with her followers.

Credit: screenshot: instagram

Bellotte was met with the obvious question from her followers: Is Lox Club not for Jewish people? She clarified that you don’t need to be Jewish to apply.

Bellotte answering a follower question about whether you need to be Jewish to apply to Lox Club.
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Source: https://mashable.com/article/is-lox-club-a-jewish-dating-app