The terrifying world of Tinder received its own feature spotlight in a new Vanity Fair exposé, which revealed an unironic glimpse of millennial dating habits. The online dating phenomenon has been bubbling away for over a decade but reached a fever pitch with the left-swipe habit promoted by Tinder.
Vanity Fair’s article is not kind to Tinder. Various gentlemen users brag about sleeping with several “Tinderellas” in one week. They pride themselves upon not spending more than $80 total on all of these dates. There’s a wink and nod to at-home movie dates as a special hookup language. Some dudes claim to “get it in” on the basis of emoji-only texts, no words required. And of course, the guys talk about how they’d never tolerate such behavior from a marriageable woman.
The ladies seem resigned to the extinction of dating behavior. Even when they see the same guy for several months, there’s no notion of boyfriend/girlfriend behavior. The men in the article possess “a perceived surplus of women,” so they only “pursue a short-term mating strategy.” The women sort of shrug and go along with the plan “in order to mate at all.” The men insist that women have their own agendas and “field their options” based upon the dudes’ professions and wealth (or lack thereof). They accuse the women of grabbing free meals disguised as dates. The whole scene appears to be an utter mess.
Tinder was not pleased with the portrayal of their popular dating app. The company had a meltdown on Twitter, which was about as classy as the clientele described in Vanity Fair’s article.
–@VanityFair Little known fact: sex was invented in 2012 when Tinder was launched.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
–@VanityFair & @nancyjosales — we have lots of data. We surveyed 265,000 of our users. But it doesn’t seem like you’re interested in facts.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Our actual data says that 1.7% of Tinder users are married — not 30% as the preposterous GlobalWebIndex article indicated.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
It's disappointing that @VanityFair thought that the tiny number of people you found for your article represent our entire global userbase 😏
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
The Tinder Generation is real. Our users are creating it. But it’s not at all what you portray it to be.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
If you want to try to tear us down with one-sided journalism, well, that’s your prerogative.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Tinder creates experiences. We create connections that otherwise never would have been made. 8 billion of them to date, in fact.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Tinder users are on Tinder to meet people for all kinds of reasons. Sure, some of them — men and women — want to hook up.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Our data tells us that the vast majority of Tinder users are looking for meaningful connections.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
It’s about meeting new people for all kinds of reasons. Travel, dating, relationships, friends and a shit ton of marriages.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
The ability to meet people outside of your closed circle in this world is an immensely powerful thing.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Instead, your article took an incredibly biased view, which is disappointing.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
But it’s not going to dissuade us from building something that is changing the world. #GenerationTinder
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Tinder appears worried about Vanity Fair’s article, but users don’t care. They’re too busy swiping left.
(via Vanity Fair, Buzzfeed & Tinder on Twitter)