Dating app algorithms function as a secular magic with opaque inner workings

Evidence

Adorno (2001) famously described astrology as capitalist society’s “regression to magic” where “thought is assimilated to late capitalist forms” that are fundamentally “asocial” (173) and where occulting forces not only do not predict the future but craft it in the image of the commodified, reified present. For Adorno, it was precisely this “combination of the realistic and the irrational” that posed a “threat and a remedy in one” (157). The inner workings of dating app algorithms, like those of Instagram or TikTok, remain fundamentally opaque—described by technologists and users alike as a different kind of magic, ostensibly substituting the magic of romantic love. NuiT, launched in 2019, is a new dating app whose matching and connecting algorithm follows astrology and natal chart compatibility—creating, in some ways, a double opacity. Just like star-sign forecasts themselves, NuiT’s promises of love to its users are both playful and elusive. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 238

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘regression to magic’ concept from Adorno and applies it to dating algorithms, giving the reader a theoretical frame for algorithmic opacity.
• XREF: Algorithmic opacity-as-magic connects to the reader’s interest in how financialized uncertainty narratives cloak systems in mystique.