Match Group

If you’ve tried out Tinder (or any dating service, for that matter) you’ve probably run across your fair share of bizarre conversations. It's a strange world out there. Sometimes the weirdness borders on amusing, but all too often it's annoying or downright creepy.

Thankfully, the Internet makes it easy to disengage from the creeps. It takes no effort whatsoever to ignore a message and hardly anything extra to block or report a user. But where's the fun in that? Why take the high road when you could take the low road, where all the fun is?

Anna Gensler, a 23-year-old artist, has a much more interesting way of dealing with the deadbeats of online dating. She began drawing nude portraits of the creeps who contacted her via Tinder, and posting the results to Instagram (NSFW, of course) alongside their offensive messages. And then, for the cherry on top, she sends the finished product back to the culprit for a final review.

Slate spoke with Gensler about her unique approach to turning harassment into art. “I feel like this gets me in trouble a lot,” she said of her inspiration for the project, “but when someone does something I think is rude, I always want to give them a taste of their own medicine. I’m an artist, and I try to use art as my weapon, even though that sounds so lame. So I thought, ‘What is something I can do to make me feel the way that they’re making me feel?’”

She settled on drawing them “sad-naked,” the most immature thing she could think of, because “their pickup lines are the most juvenile, basic things, but also still oddly offensive.” Each of her portraits is based on the guys' profile pictures, but modified to be as unflattering as possible. The subjects are all made chubbier, scrawnier, or just not particularly well-endowed.

Not satisfied with taking on the creeps of Tinder, Gensler joined OkCupid in hopes of finding new subjects worthy of her artistic intentions. She even put a blatant warning on her profile – “I’m going to draw you naked if you send me rude messages” – and a link back to the Instagram. Whether or not it deterred potential creeps is unknown, but it did intrigue a surprising number of nice guys who found the project funny and requested a portrait of their own.

And what about the guys who receive Gensler’s works of art? “There are a few approaches,” she explained. “Some of them get really angry and say a bunch of mean stuff. Some of them get a little bit offended ‘and say, “Why am I so fat? My facial hair doesn’t really look like that. My nipples are smaller than that!’ They think I didn’t do them justice. Some people just block me. But a couple of guys have actually said smart things after I sent it to them.”

If you tried to access PlentyOfFish on May 20^th, you may have run into a major roadblock. The site’s 503 page simply said “The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. Check back shortly!" Behind the scenes of the service outage, something a little more sinister was going on.

Around 7am that morning, POF received a warning of an impending DDoS attack. It isn't unusual for large websites to receive similar threats that turn out to be fake, but in this case the threat was real.

The DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack hit just before 8:15am. Such attacks are launched from thousands of computers around the world that have been infected with malware. Without the owner's knowledge, each computer repeatedly sends false requests to a site until it’s overwhelmed. The initial attacks took down the Plenty of Fish website, followed later by the company’s mobile apps on iPhone, iPad and Android.

POF was quick to note that although the attack was large, it did not compromise anyone's data in any way. “That said,” the POF blog noted, “these requests can overload our servers and can even cause ISP problems, so we quickly worked with our ISP to identify the offending traffic and tried various means to block it.”

Later in the day, another message was sent to POF, this time asking for money in exchange for ending the DDoS attack. POF refused to negotiate, and by 1pm they had successfully blocked the attack and returned all services to normal.

“We’re still on high alert and working hard to respond to attacks like this more quickly in the future,” concluded the blog post about the attack, “but in the meantime I’m happy to report that all of you are back to doing what you do best; sending messages, going on dates, and forging meaningful relationships. Thanks for your patience today.”

DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly popular and increasingly powerful, thanks to new methods being used by attackers. The attack on Plenty of Fish was 40 Gigabits in size, making it much larger than the attack that took Meetup.com off-line for nearly 5 days last month (which was “only” 8 GBps). The list of companies that have been attacked in this manner is increasing all the time, including Basecamp, Vimeo, Bit.ly, and Moz.

The good news is, that although DDoS attacks are irritating for users and even more frustrating for the companies who fall victim, they do not put users’ data in danger.

No dating service gets more attention than Tinder these days. We hear from a lot of uptight journalists who worry that the app encourages hook-ups, and from finance experts wondering how the app will eventually monetize, and from discouraged daters telling their Tinder horror stories.

But today let’s take a look at the lighter side of Tinder. There’s a lot going on in the mobile app’s world, and plenty of it is downright hysterical.

First, a man posed as a cupcake on Tinder and wrote about his experience for Thrillist. “If there's one thing I've learned about heterosexual women,” he writes, “it's that they like men. They enjoy their company. They even marry them, sometimes. But they love cupcakes. And if there's another thing I know, it's that single women are on Tinder. So armed with those two pieces of knowledge, I set out to create a Tinder persona that no woman could resist: a man's face drawn on a cupcake.” The results of his experiment are hilarious.

Perhaps inspired by the cupcake, another man decided to join Tinder as a golden retriever named Hero. Hero, like the cupcake before him, proved to be a very popular match. The faux canine received 206 matches – 154 from men and 52 from women – after just four fun-filled days on the app.

If hilarious and heart-warming stories of baked goods and puppies aren’t your thing, try Humanitarians of Tinder. The sarcastic Tumblr ruthlessly rolls its eyes at the single do-gooders annoyingly capitalizing on their charity work (and maybe just regular travels) around the world. Warning: with all the facepalming you’re about to do, forehead bruising is a serious possibility.

Then there’s Tinderfessions, a Twitter account that's exactly what it sounds like. This is a prime destination for awkward, funny, and sorta depressing tales of Tinder gone wrong, mixed in with happy stories of Tinder love gone oh-so-right. “Only met one guy in person. haven’t left his place since our first date. this was over a month ago. #thankstinder #keeper.” writes a user named Kels. “All my pics are with my really good-looking friend and in my bio I say I’m him. #catfish,” admits Trent. Expect to feel a lot of ups and downs as you read this feed.

If you want to skip the ups and cut straight to the downs (the comical kind, that is) head on over to Tinderlines.com, where you’ll be treated to a collection of “the best, the worst, and the funniest Tinder pick-up lines.” Prepare yourself for bad jokes, snappy comebacks, sexual innuendo, mathematical equations, song lyrics, one-sided conversations, and a whole lotta laughter.

To find out more about this dating app you can read our review of Tinder.

Despite still facing the occasional naysayer, the Internet and dating have proved to be a match made in heaven. With consumers using the Internet more and more each year, demand for online dating services continues its meteoric rise. In particular, the ever-increasing popularity of smartphones has made mobile applications a booming business for dating services.

IBISWorld, a global business intelligence leader specializing in Industry Market Research and Procurement and Purchasing research reports, recently put together a comprehensive guide to the online dating industry's market size and growth prospects. By all accounts, the future looks bright for the industry's biggest forces.

InterActiveCorp is the one to beat. The largest company in the industry, IAC counts Match, OkCupid, and Tinder amongst its brands. The New York City-based company is expected to grab 27% of the estimated $2.2 billion market for US dating services in 2014, according to the new IBISWorld report. Analyst Jeremy Edwards predicts IAC's US Match revenue will rise 11.5% to $605.1 million this year, with operating income up 14% to $192.8 million.

Coming solidly in second place is eHarmony, a privately held company based out of Santa Monica, CA. eHarmony proudly dominates 13.8% of the US dating service market, IBISWorld says. The company’s projected US revenue for 2014 is $310 million, up 6.9%, with operating income up 9.6% to $35.3 million.

Spot #3 goes to San Francisco-based Zoosk, with 5.1% market share. 2014 has been a big year for Zoosk so far. The company filed for an initial public offering in April and IBISWorld predicts it will generate $114.2 million in US sales, up 24.5%, and operating income of $3.5 million. That's a nice change from a loss of $100,000 in 2013.

Finally, occupying fourth place, is dating service Spark Networks, with 3.2% US market share.

Altogether, the four largest companies account for 49.1% of US dating service revenue. The industry’s other winners are mobile dating (26%), matchmakers (14%), and singles events (7%).  IBISWorld expects the US dating service industry to grow at an annual rate of 4.2% from 2014 through 2019 - at which point it predicts sales will reach a whopping $2.7 billion.

"It is estimated that niche dating networks and services catering to the baby boomer generation will see the most growth," Edwards said. "In addition, revenue for the mobile dating market is expected to nearly double in the next five years, with rising smartphone adoption and new location-based features leading the market." 

It wasn't long ago that OkCupid urged users to boycott Firefox over its new (and since ousted) CEO’s donation to California's Prop. 8 campaign against gay marriage. But these days, “OkCupid” and “boycott” are appearing in the same headlines for entirely different reasons. This time, OkCupid is on the receiving end of the outrage.

It all started when it was revealed that OkCupid’s CEO donated money to a candidate with an iffy record on gay rights. Then Match.com, also owned by OkCupid’s parent company IAC, hit the news for its less-than-stellar policy towards bisexuals. Now OkCupid is in the spotlight again, this time over its limited gender and sexuality options.

Currently, users may only choose to identify as male or female for gender options, and as straight, gay, or bi for sexuality. The options are limiting for trans* and gender-non-conforming singles who may be forced to mislabel themselves if they want to use OkCupid. The site’s algorithm may then also incorrectly pair them with partners.

On May 2, activist Ryley Pogensky asked queer users and allies to replace their OkCupid profile pictures with a black box, and then to either log out or delete their profiles for 24 hours. He also created a Change.org petition, which has over 1200 signatures and counting.

“With such a strong presence of queer, trans*, and poly folks utilizing OkCupid every day,” reads the petition, “it is extremely limiting on those members to have to fit such rigid gender and sexuality options. Trans* individuals for instance are forced to choose M or F and then Gay, Bisexual, or Straight. These binaries do not fit for all of us and you will see more often than not a paragraph (or more) in these profiles devoted to trying to explain who they are and questioning why OkCupid has yet to catch on. The time has come for OkCupid to take notice of all of its members.”

OkCupid initially responded positively, saying that the changes would "involve a lot of reworking of the site, because we built it in a pretty binary way," but that they "absolutely want to add more gender and orientation options in the future." That was a year ago and no changes have been made, but Pogensky remains hopeful.

"I have made friends around the world using OkCupid and utilize it heavily," Pogensky told Huffington Post. "They are clearly the most capable and willing of all of the dating sites to make a change like this. Staying progressive means that you fight and stand up for multiple minorities, not just the ones that will make you popular to investors."

Online dating has been around for a while. And plenty of couples met over a dating website years ago, got married, and now have children. So it makes sense that one of the most established of these - Match.com - might want to prep the new generation when they start online dating. Why not use Mom and Dad as an example for what really works when it comes to love?

It’s not surprising the company is marketing to a new generation of online daters, considering the growth of the online dating industry. Last year, a report came out from a Harris poll that stated more than one in three American couples that got married between 2005 and 2012 met online.

Match.com was quick to jump on that study, touting its matching services for their own successful couples.

Match.com is one dating site that has stood the test of time, and managed to grow its user base over the years despite the onslaught of competition. This month the online dating giant announced its “MatchMade” Scholarship Contest, a $50,000 program open to kids of parents who met on Match. Launched over 19 years ago, Match claims it has led to more dates, more relationships, and more marriages than any other site. The company also says that over one million babies were “made” because of Match, so the company will continue to positively impact the lives of its members by offering a scholarship to the children of its success couples.

Match’s contest revolves around creative story-telling and social media sharing. The campaign kicked off with a video of young kids sharing their thoughts on everything from marriage to careers and college – but mostly about love and babies. The MatchMade scholarship contest is open to students between the ages of 13-20 nationwide, so it’s targeting an older demographic that will be ready for the dating pool soon.

To enter, students must submit a short video retelling their parents’ Match love story in a creative way - from their first messages exchanged on Match to the moment they knew they were meant for each other. Match will accept submissions through June 30, 2014, after which the company will select a group of finalists. In August, the public will choose the winner by sharing their favorite videos via Facebook and Twitter, and the winner will be awarded a $50,000 scholarship. The parents of the winner are part of the competition, too - they will be given $5,000 to put toward a getaway.

“Success on Match takes many forms, but of course there’s a special place in our hearts for the children involved in our members’ lives,” said Sam Yagan, CEO of Match. “By bringing their parents together, we’ve played a small role in the lives of more than one million MatchMade babies, and now with the MatchMade Scholarship Contest, we’re excited to extend that special relationship to helping those children pay for college.”