Dating apps extend capitalism’s romance ideology, concealing inequality as personal choice.

Evidence

Yet, as sociologist Laurie Essig (2019) has argued, even when dating apps appear willing to confront systemic vectors of oppression, they often remain faithful to the individualizing ideology of modern capitalist romance: a space of interaction where economic inequalities are concealed and presented as a matter of personal choice. From this perspective, rather than undermining the illusory magic of love, dating apps appear to work in tandem with capitalism’s romance ideology, reinforcing “a dreamscape that allows us to get away from our own reality” (Essig 2019, 55). To put it another way, Tinder’s infinite swipe is now romantic love’s incongruous antechamber. For Essig, societies are thus turned further away from the public sphere and become sheltered in the private sphere—just as intimate life itself becomes more publicly performed than ever. They become distracted from the task of formulating more collective responses to their underlying conditions of emotional insecurity and structural inequality under financialized capitalism. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 221

Categorization

• XREF: Continues the core homo speculans thesis — the individualizing reframe of structural conditions as personal choice parallels how financialized subjects accept volatility as their own responsibility. Links forward to the ‘counter-speculations’ chapter assessment.
• SEED: Potential essay: Bumble and the benevolent-feminism branding of speculative romance markets — how apps signal safety (feminist, queer-friendly) while deepening the individualized-risk model.