Digital dating apps displaced human intermediaries as primary matchmakers

Evidence

During 2019, it was reported for the first time that the majority of heterosexual couples in the United States had met through such digital apps, surpassing the human intermediary role of institutions that had traditionally facilitated romantic relations until recently (Rosenfeld et al. 2019). The ritual use of online dating has thus become an integral part of everyday intimate life. Yet just as we enter partnerships through these interfaces in greater numbers than ever, their use is being refocused to target the fast-­growing constituency of those who remain intentionally unpartnered. Tinder’s mission statement as of 2020 reads “We celebrate that being single is a journey. And a great one. Being single isn’t the thing you do, unhappily, before you settle down.” The company’s sleek global marketing campaign, designed by Wieden+Kennedy (the advertising agency behind Nike’s “Just do it” tagline), captures this fluid concept of intimacy in the slogan “Single not sorry.” People seem to be turning their backs to the pursuit of ideas such as “true love” and a “happy ending,” which have long captivated capitalist society’s romantic imagination. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 342

Categorization

• XREF: Evokes the author’s frame that speculative technologies monetize citizens as spectators - here applied to romance rather than prediction markets. — connects to: Dating apps create new rituals rather than merely erasing romantic sociality — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 234; Online dating apps have surpassed human intermediaries in forming US heterosexual couples — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 342; Digital dating apps now mediate a majority of American heterosexual couplings. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 218 (+1 more)
• CANDY: By 2019 most US heterosexual couples met via apps, and Tinder’s ‘Single not sorry’ was made by the agency behind Nike’s ‘Just do it.‘

Broader Connections

• Digital dating apps now mediate a majority of American heterosexual couplings. #corroborates (0.95) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 218
• Online dating apps have surpassed human intermediaries in forming US heterosexual couples #corroborates (0.90) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 342
• Dating apps create new rituals rather than merely erasing romantic sociality #qualifies (0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 234
• Reality romance TV applies dating app and matching algorithm logic to intimacy #expands (0.75) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 236