South Korean Dating Apps Restricting Masked User Profiles

After receiving numerous complaints from their users, dating apps in South Korea are cracking down on users who mask up in their profiles in an attempt to hide their faces.

According to The Korean Herald, this practice has become known as “magikkun,” from the English word “mask” and the Korean word “sagikkun,” which means fraud. People who use masks in their profile photos are assumed to be deceiving potential matches, because they are hiding what they look like in real life. 

Some users are avoiding swiping right on masked-up profiles altogether, where others use video chat or request a selfie from the user before agreeing to meet them in person.

The pandemic has been a boon to dating apps, with revenue increasing substantially over the past two years across the market, particularly in Asia. Korean-based dating apps saw an increase in new users as well, but noticed there was also a flood of dating profiles that featured daters wearing masks in obvious attempts to obscure their features.

Some Korean dating apps like Blind Date have started to limit the number of masked pictures you can use in your profile to curb this phenomenon. 

Hsociety Corp, which owns a number of Korean dating apps including the popular app Sky People, also noted the surge of masked photos, and created a verification system where users must have unmasked photos uploaded as well to complete the registration process on their apps.

The Korea Herald consulted with some psychologists on the reasons behind why people would mask up for their dating profile pictures. Psychology professor Kwak Geum-joo of Seoul National University said that some daters might be comforted by wearing masks, because they can hide flaws or even facial expressions like frowning or smirking. He added that masking for photos offers a level of safety for some users because they might be afraid of exposing themselves online.

A few recent studies have also pointed to vanity. One study by Cardiff University found that people found profile photos where the user was wearing a blue surgical mask, even a digitally added one, to be more attractive than those who showed their faces.

Still, dating app users want more transparency when it comes to meeting someone over a dating app, and wearing a mask for photos implies that they are hiding something, and therefore may not be trustworthy. Daters have complained for a long time about matches posting pictures that are too old, or too grainy, or that don’t show their full faces, which can be deceiving.

The trend is taking off in South Korea, but notably not in other countries where dating app usage has increased. At least, not yet.