Have you ever wanted to see one of your "hate readings" extended to the length of the movie? If so, you'll want to watch HBO's new documentary, "Swiped," which takes a depressing, triggering and condemnatory look at the online dating culture, and specifically Tinder's enormous influence on the dating apps business.
from the Vanity Fair 2015 work by journalist Nancy Jo Sales, titled "Tinder and the Dawn of the 'Apocalypse of Quotations', which was criticized at that time for its narrow focus on 20-year-old women So many years, mostly heterosexuals in an urban environment, the piece had extrapolated their personal dating fights and made them condemns the entire online dating market.
But the VF piece was actually more memorable for the Tinder's response
The company … well, it exploded. [19659002] In a tirade of 30 tweets (that's still one of the best on the internet, look), the company lost its always in love mind in both Vanity Fair as in Nancy Jo Sales.
A sample tweet from the Tinder crisis: "@VanityFair: Little is known: sex was invented in 2012 when Tinder was launched."
Ah , take it! Right ?! No?
Despite the slapstick comp RP leta, Tinder was right.
The VF part was not representative of Tinder's largest user base, just a splinter. And the complaints of a few users could not be used to make an observation about the whole industry.
Also, what exactly was the only one of those complaints?
Was it really the culture of the coup the culprit? for mistakes made in dating and sexual experimentation, when you're young? At least once or twice you do not have to choose the wrong person, so you can begin to triangulate what is right?
Unfortunately, the film does not completely correct the article's problem in terms of its demographic samplings. [19659002] It is still mainly based on anecdotes told by people (usually drunk) of about 20 years, who are then spliced by comments from occasional experts.
And the subjects are often really, really drunk.
There is a scene in which a young woman is so lost, it is hard to believe that she has given the filmmaker informed consent to use her footage.
(It's not the one below, but I'm pretty sure those Solo cups are not full of lemonade.)
Meanwhile, the commentary of an expert also highlights
There is an expert, April Alliston, Princeton professor, who breastfeeds her baby in front of the camera while giving her comment on pornography. (Oh, yes, discuss rape while the baby is breastfeeding, thank you very much.)
Look how cool and progressive we are! is the unspoken subtext, even when the film subtly continues to vilify casual sex among young adults, or act as if Tinder were somehow entirely responsible for the insensitive behavior of its users.
Unlike the magazine article, the film slightly expands its cast of characters to include the nonconforming genre and other LGBTQ people, more people of color, and – well, it's Tinder! – a couple interested in threesomes.
But the general portion of the Tinder user base interviewed remains young, urban, and, in some cases, rather bland.
As for the medium of "Swiped", much of its action is in the city.
Specifically, scene after scene in the film is labeled, "New York, New York," as if the experiences of people in this competitive One market – a place to level up something better is a way of life – it could somehow represent a universal truth applicable to all the estimated 50 million Tinder users.
The film, however, covers almost everything bad about dating apps, from young men who invite girls to their door as if it were a Seamless meal, to the overwhelming sense of fear and depression that results from be in dating apps, or really, the internet itself, for too long.
There are also scenes that touch almost all trovers of Tinder:
Sending photos dick; men posing with fish in their profile photos; that supposedly happy couple "looking for a third party" (spoiler alert: they are not happy and they are divided at the end of the movie); the "DTF?" coming; and basically any other reason why people delete these applications in the first place.
Where the movie is strongest is when it talks about the very real psychological tricks that Tinder and other dating apps have adopted to keep users interested and addicted to slipping. 19659002] Tinder, it is pointed out, uses gamification techniques: brain tricks as intermittent variable rewards that have been proven to work with pigeons, nothing less.
You see, if you do not know when you will receive the reward, a treat, a match, etc. – you end up playing the game more often, explain the psychologists.
One of the best quotes on this topic comes from co-founder and CSO Jonathan Badeen, where he essentially compares the act of using Tinder to do drugs or gamble.
"We have some of these elements similar to games, in which you almost feel like you're being rewarded," says Baden. "It works like a slot machine, where you're excited to see who the next person is or, hopefully, you're excited to see" I got the game? "And get that & # 39; It's a game & # 39; & # 39; screen? It's a good hurry, "he says enthusiastically.
Yes.
Yes.
Of course, these concerns go beyond the industry of online dating applications.
Applications of social networks, in general, have been called more recently for similar behaviors, that is, to take advantage of psychological gaps to add their users in an unhealthy way.
The ramifications of our smart phone addictions are only now being examined, in fact.
Apple and Google, for example, have just released screen time controls designed to give us the opportunity to fight against the dangerous dark patterns and brain attacks that these applications use. (The Apple toolkit is only coming in iOS 12, which has just hit the public.)
It's certainly fair to criticize companies like Tinder and Bumble for bringing these gamification tricks to sensitive areas like those in which they supposedly The formation is focused on real human connections or "finding love". But it is false to act as if this were something exclusive to Tinder (et al) and not only, in general, the horrible state of the technology industry as a whole in the present.
The only other valuable part of "Swiped" is where the film points out that no one knows if any of these addictive applications really succeeds to help people find real relationships.
Appointments Application companies do not have any data on how many lasting relationships result from the use of their application, find "Swiped". It's strange, since technology companies are generally data hungry beasts. And the success rates would seem to be the exact type of metrics that a company claims to solve problems related to the search for relationships. "19659002 Although everyone today seems to know someone who met in an application, it's not clear which part of the user base is finding long-term success with those relationships." Appointment application companies also have no idea, proclaims the
When asked how many people they met in Tinder they married or ended up in committed relationships, Jessica Carbino, a sociologist in Tinder, tells the filmmaker: "no we have that information available. "She then adds that she is" inundated with emails "from Tinder users who get married and have babies.
(She also hilariously defends casual connections as something that people go to church to chase too, so do not blame Tinder for that! I mean, sometimes this movie is just a golden comedy, I swear it)
Of course, with a user base in the dozens million, a good handful of happy emails is expected. Definitely not evidence that Tinder is better than the alternative: bars, blind dates, presentations through friends, etc.
The film drives this particular point home citing user studies from both Tinder and the more relationship-centric dating app, Binge, seems to indicate that swap-based dating does not work.
"80% of Tinder users seek a serious relationship", says a Tinder survey. The text then fades, and the following statistic appears, this time from Bisagra.
"81% of users have never found a long-term relationship in any slip application", says. [19659002] By the end of the movie, it's clear that you're expected to remove Tinder and all the other dating apps from your phone and get on with your life.
However, like Facebook and social networks, reaction does not mean abandonment.
The culture of the slip of Tinder is the new normality. It is right to hold him accountable in areas that can do better, such as reporting and abusing, but it will not disappear soon.