BLK Dating App Rolls Out New Profile Badges

BLK Profile Badges

Image: blk

BLK, a dating app for black singles, is rolling out an array of new profile stickers for users to highlight who they are and spark conversations with potential matches.

The company is offering a range of badges to help users identify themselves through more than just pictures, a feature many dating apps offer, but this one particularly unique to the black experience. BLK also wanted to add to the community building on its platform, which took off along with the racial justice movement in 2020 when users were sharing resources with each other over the app and engaging in conversations about their experiences.

The new badges are artistic and whimsical and include choices such as “Black biz owner” and “Community activist” to describe work, as well as “Caribbean Descent” and “Afro Latino” to identify cultural roots, and “Naturally Dope” to highlight allegiance to the natural hair movement. Other identifiers like “Poly” and “Transgender” are available to choose from too, according to Business Insider, for a total of 30 badges. The stickers were designed by Colombian-born and now New York-based artist Leonel Gonzalez.

The badges were developed based on a survey the app did among its users, most of them Gen Z or millennial daters aged 18 to 35. BLK found that the majority of younger users were interested in polyamorous relationships as part of their lifestyle, so they added “Poly” to the new stickers, even though it’s not a much talked-about topic in the black community.

"We're doing stickers that really are endemic with the culture and the community that you might not see on other apps. So, think natural hair, dreadlocks, Caribbean descent, Afro Latino," Jonathan Kirkland, BLK's head of marketing, told Business Insider. "Mainstream apps probably wouldn't go so deep into this level of representation."

The company is looking to make the stickers into merchandise too, with the development of t-shirts, hats and other wearables that will be launched at a later date. Kirkland told Business Insider: "We're a dating app at our core, but throughout this year and next we're going to be moving more into the lifestyle space.”

This summer, the app will also be hosting an in-person convention and concert for Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S. This will be its first in-person event since the pandemic lockdowns began, when the company held only virtual events.

BLK is owned by Match Group, which owns other popular dating apps like Tinder, OkCupid and Hinge.