I have been asked for many interviews about Tinder during this year. Which is a kind of absurd, because I study the traditional types of online dating profiles in online dating sites, not Tinder. But the journalists insist information because the audience needs information. This is the hottest thing happened in online dating for a while. Don´t say it´s over. Or – is it going to be over soon? Do you know something we don´t?
Putinder-jokes were far funnier than the usual online dating memes. Usually they focus on unreal identity or false characteristics. Putin getting divorced was the greatest opportunity to link it with the application. Something everyone was already discussing about. I was actually amazed when a young girl who works at the grocery store by my street came to talk to me about Putinder meme. She found it so funny. Even though she does not know me nor know what I do for a living. Applications rule the social world today.
What makes Tinder so popular compared to other dating services? Why Tinder is so ok to speak in public? Online dating has existed since the mid 1990´s. That first period carried the biggest burden of the awkwardness and embarrassment. Tinder appeared on the market in the period of the online dating´s reputation was no longer so bad. It has already a cultural base which it could attach to. It is no longer spoken publicly that much about how it’s just for desperate and freaks that cannot found a partner anywhere else. It is okay to meet people online. Tinder has been advertised and reported in journals and magazines much more than it´s predecessors in the field. It is new, but it is not something unheard of. Many Finnish public figures have spoken about their use of Tinder. The reasons are certainly many, perhaps just the opportunity to make themselves trendy. This, however, lowers the threshold for non-public figures speech of their Tinder use.
The popularity of Tinder is based, firstly, on that it is really well marketed and has been talked about a lot. That urges people wanting to at least try the application. There have been some excellent public stories about Tinder. For example, this news from February 2014 that Tinder helped a researcher couple found each other in such an exotic location as Antarctica. That was a huge hit and spread all over the world. That story also put the emphasis on Tinder´s novelty value comparing to other applications: location match with geographical basis.
Tinder also benefits from the familiar elements of other services, such as social media. The high speed of coming information is one of these elements – just like in Facebook or Twitter. Also the need to react quickly and make fast decision (yes/no) for ruling the game is familiar from the online game world. Because Tinder also uses the already available social media profiles, it is clearly having a target audience ready in Facebook. Tinder is also an application easy to download and it does not require a new input because using already existing social media profiles. Another large network in the world besides the social media users are the online game players who might be attracted by Tinder´s ease, speed and game like structure. That all refers to the concept of mediated society, in which adopting the so-called new applications I think the digital natives has a small advantage. Even though for example media researcher Esa Väliverronen has claimed that speaking about digital natives should get forgotten at once. He thinks that the whole concept is just the fiction or illusion of digital natives´ parents and it just reflects the inaccurate belief for technological powers and the superior media skills of young people. In real it is just the parents´ fear of their own poor media skills.
Tinder is mostly used by the young people. A journalist once asked why it is that the older (30+ years) are not that enthusiastic about Tinder. I think the reason is simply that in general, new technology and new trends reach and are first popularized by the younger age group, and from them they spread – if spread – to other age groups. Younger have more time and energy to also get to know the latest applications and they will probably be discussed about among their own age group. The older age groups may be more alone with their looking of a partner, since a large part of their age group already is in a relationship. They are not pioneers of new applications, but strong users during the next wave. A large number of young people are single and are in the same situation with each other. The information, the desire to experiment and experience, therefore, often take place first in the generation of the younger people.
Tinder is also used with other purposes than finding a future spouse, like used by a couple or used purely as entertainment, or used for checking the value on the single market. Is there a similar phenomenon seen in other online dating services? In my opinion, Tinder is marketed specifically to search for a partner application, so it can be assumed that the user will feel ripped off if finding out that the counterpart to the objectives and activities feels differently. But, on dating site services there has pretty much always been the category “looking for an (sexual) adventure” – just like old newspaper Personals in Finland had the code “having a cup of coffee together” (päiväkahvin merkeissä). So it may therefore be assumed that this kind of “misusing” the dating services has always been present, though not so much discussed about. Recently there have been online dating sites, like Victoria Milan, specialized for people who are already in the relationship. With those there has been some public discussion, usually with strong disapproval.
I have been thinking about the paradox of media communication lately. Kenneth Gergen has called it absent presence – you are physically there but actually concentrating on your smartphone. Also Sherry Turkle has been thinking about this urge to be connected all the time and she says that paradoxically being alone is the requirement for being together. Because it is easier to communicate with other people when you can concentrate on your smartphone without disturbances.
But, mis-users of Tinder – what should one think? Phenomenon explains the applied use of the media in the first place, which is not in itself a bad thing, but proves the creativity of its users. Secondly, it tells about the increasing importance of mediated entertainment in people’s lives. Like news in social media news flows are nowadays used as entertainment. It contributes to the so-called click-bait journalism which means that the quality of the news depends on how much of it has been clicked. This in turn has led to click-baits. Applications such as Tinder have the similar entertaining value. These will lead to the addicted media use: for example, in public transport the most travelers are absent present playing with their smartphones.
But is online dating getting permanently mobile, or would the traditional web sites still hold up? Are those sites developing to the same direction as Tinder? Tinder is relying mostly on visual expressions. The visual turn reached the online world mostly due to social media, in particular, Instagram, and the like since 2005. It has affected a lot to online dating. The photo in the online dating profile used to be a luxury, and a little bit extra. You had to have a real good self-esteem to put a photo of yourself to the online dating profile. Today, this threshold has lowered so much. It is so normal and every day to publish a selfie. Everyone does it and it does not require any particularly great looks. Thus, photos in online dating have become “mandatory”. If the dater does not have a photo, there raises more questions than with a profile with photos.
Like I said earlier, Tinder is not that revolutionary, because mobile dating is not really that a new thing. In 2000s, the early years, many online dating sites launched mobile applications. However, they were functioning parallel with the actual pages. Why this type of service not already gained tremendous popularity at the time? WAP-technology was not yet ready: mobile apps were slow, connection was easily broken. Online dating with the conventional computer was simply easier. It needed current smart phone technology for the tinder-like services to flourish. If I was now to launch a new dating service, that would be a mobile application. That’s the way I believe that online dating is about to change, gradually. Traditional online dating sites, however, will last for some time. At the international level there is still Match.com, among the others, which can be considered one of the pioneers in the field. Big online dating service sites are financially strong and there may not be any sudden need for them to transfer the concept to only mobile format.
But Tinder – is it going to be over soon? Is it just a momentary trend? Many people are already tired of Tinder. The most recent developments in online dating have been the use of all sorts of other network services for partner exploration, like geographical location and social media information. Tinder like any trend must keep up with its competitors and in the other hand, bring something new to the online dating scene. The regular renewal is the key to the success. None completely stable service will not stay popular for a long. Tinder´s latest undo function is not only such renewal, but also their way to get back to the headlines, which Tinder needs for marketing. Recently there was Bumble application introduced: works a lot like Tinder BUT it has to be a woman to start chatting if you get a match with someone. No unwanted messages from men and this helps to get the communication more respectful – they promise.
I cannot predict the life cycle of Tinder – or Bumble. They are functional as long as they have users. And in order to have users, they must renew themselves in time to time, get positive publicity and thus the potential to beat the competitors.
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