HOUSTON – If you’ve been on I-45 it’s not uncommon to be a little distracted by the enticing billboards we have but one in particular has been creating some laughs for Houston’s Muslim community.
One of the billboards wastes no time calling out its targeted audience saying, “200,000 Muslims in Houston ... and ya’ll are still single?”
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There’s also another billboard targeted specifically toward the Muslim ladies in Houston.
Jokes aside, it was worth looking into where these billboards came from. It turns out the dating app, Muzz, is actually based out of the United Kingdom by Shahzad Younas. However, the app is available to users across the world including Houston, where I was able to speak with one of the comedy geniuses behind the billboards, and Muzz’s marketing specialist, Julia Cardenas.
As a lifelong Houston resident, Cardenas is aware of the role billboards play on our highways and the inside jokes that we all have about them.
“I would say it was worked on as a team, but specific stuff to Houston, like the use of the word ‘y’all; the reference to being stuck on 45, like, those are things that I was kind of pushing for and it’s funny because they don’t say ‘y’all’ in London ever, so they were confused at first why that was on there, but I was like, no, we have to have it,” she explained. “Of course, me being in Houston, me living here for the past 20 years, I know certain things. Like I was like, ‘OK I-45 is like the notoriously the worst highway in Houston; worst traffic — everyone hates it,’ so I’m like, definitely billboards need to go there and we need to reference that as well.”
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Though the billboards are new, Muzz has been around since 2015, growing to become one of the biggest Muslim marriage apps out there.
“We have over 10 million users, over 500,000 success stories with real people that find a real connection to the app,” Cardenas explained.
Here’s the tricky part about an app catering to Muslims that I threw her way. There are billions of Muslims around the world and millions in Houston alone and often times there can be a spiritual divide among sects or schools of thought. This can make finding a partner challenging based on how religious someone is or how they characterize the concept of religiousness.
“I think that’s something that Muzz has been able to do really well, is scale to the needs of the Muslim community specifically,” Cardenas explained. “Especially now, in a time where the Muslim community can feel so divided up for so many reasons internally and externally. We really try to focus on keeping the community together. And of course, a big component of this is providing these Muslims a safe space to meet a potential partner.”
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Even making jokes could be interpreted as taboo for some folks, but at the end of the day, Cardenas said they have experienced positive feedback from the billboards.
“Any time that you incorporate religion into something or Islam into anything, like it’s always met with people who maybe feel like you shouldn’t take comedic approaches with things,” she said. “But one thing about Muzz and kind of to touch on our general branding, how we’re kind of satirical and goofy: We like to be that way, but that’s not to say that we’re not a religious company.
“We have Islamic principles at the forefront of everything that we do,” she continued. “So, of course, like sometimes we want to be funny. We want to maybe have a shock factor with things, but all within good taste.”
And as we try to move away from screens and cultivate real relationships, Cardenas says they work continuously to hold meetup events around the country.
“They’re very like laid back casual socializing networking vibe going on,” she explained. “We have two main types of events: so we have our matrimonial events and we have our socials. Just to give you context, the matchmaking events are typically a lot bigger. In the past, we’ve had like 400 to 500 people and we have more specific, like matchmaking activities, outlined, whether that’s speed dating or, specific, like games with icebreaker cards.”
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Muzz’s social events always tend to be a hit and met with a lot of positive feedback; something that caught even Cardenas by surprise.
“People absolutely love it,” she said. “At first, I was nervous about it cause I was like, ‘oh my gosh, do people actually come to these?’ ‘Is the response going to be good?’ But when you’re actually there, the attendees -- many are so grateful to have just this sort of event being organized. Because for a lot of them, depending on the city they live in, they either feel disconnected from their community or they don’t ever come to these sorts of fun nights out where it’s just Muslims there and everyone there has that one thing that they can connect on.
“So they’re always like, ‘thank you so much for organizing this’,” Cardenas continued. “We even have people traveling across the nation to come to our events, traveling from other countries to come, which is just so crazy. But we’re so grateful to have like a community of people who just love what we put together.”
At the end of this, we can take a big lesson from these billboards, as comical as they are, to not be afraid to put yourself out there. One of the best pieces of marriage/dating advice Cardenas shared, is to “let go of the idea of a ‘perfect’ match.”
“Understand that marriage is a fluid companionship where you are constantly growing together and entering new stages of life together,” she said. “Marriage is not a constant uphill journey- don’t be disheartened if things aren’t always going in the way you imagine. I feel like our generation was fixated on what people don’t have/ their imperfections. Instead, understand the good you both offer to the marriage and focus on that.”
Learn more about Muzz by visiting the dating app’s website.