Profiles

OkCupid Study on Politics and Dating

Image: OkCupid

If you’re looking to improve your dating options, you might want to register to vote, at least if you’re an OkCupid user. 

The famously provocative dating app conducted a study among its users and found that they tend to be more politically engaged, and therefore want their dates to be too, especially during an important election year in the U.S. A whopping seventy-six percent surveyed said that how their dates lean politically is important. OkCupid users consider voting a very important practice – and over 500,000 of its users said they wouldn’t consider dating someone who didn’t vote. 

Ninety-one percent of women and 89% of men surveyed said they are registered to vote. In fact, the study found that registered voters on OkCupid are 85% more likely to get a message than non-registered voters, which is one of the reasons OkCupid now offers a voting badge feature to attach to your profile for easy identification. Registered voters are also 63% more likely to get a match.

OkCupid Voter 2020 Badge

Image: OkCupid

Several popular dating apps including OkCupid, Tinder and Bumble are encouraging their users to vote through in-app promotions, according to The Hill.

As election season in the U.S. gets underway, many grassroots organizations are asking volunteers to make sure all eligible people, especially first-time voters, register to vote. Many non-profit groups are hoping to capture the attention of young people and get them excited about voting, and one of the strategies is to engage dating app users.

Popular dating app Hinge crashed on a Thursday late in August, and when users were once again able to log in, they found that some of their matches were gone. Many took to Twitter to voice their complaints.

The app crashed Thursday morning August 20th according to Insider, and the Hinge team worked to fix the problem and make it available again only 30 minutes later. However, when people began to log back in, some noticed problems – especially that their matches were no longer appearing in their queue.

Dating app OkCupid announced a redesign for its mobile app, which includes a new feature called Stacks to help users better sort through profiles.

Stacks organizes dater profiles into categories for easy browsing, according to CNet. Some of the categories available in the free version of the app include who’s nearby, online, or recommended. Another category the company highlighted that’s also available to all users is called “Question Pros,” and includes the profiles of daters who have answered a higher number of questions on the app than the average user. 

New app Joystick Dating, catering specifically to single gamers, launched in June. But ongoing reports of rampant misogyny in gamer culture might impact the number of women interested in signing up.

Niche dating apps aren’t new, but appealing to gamers looking for love shows promise because of the number of people around the world who not only play video games but are avid fans of online gaming and esports. According to the latest stats from The Gamer, there are over 164 million adult gamers in the U.S. alone, which means about 64% of Americans play video games. That’s a huge potential market, considering more than half of U.S. adults are single.

Tinder, while not a niche dating app, has sponsored esports events and organizations, seeing the opportunity to appeal to gamers that Joystick’s creator David Minn sees.

Dating app OkCupid has rolled out a new Black Lives Matter badge for users to add to their profiles. The app has also added a list of questions about racial injustice and inequality for users to start meaningful conversations.

Users can add the badge by answering yes to the question: “Do you want to support the #BlackLivesMatter movement by adding a badge to your profile?” according to the OkCupid Blog. It is currently available in more than a dozen countries. 

OkCupid is also offering new questions as conversation prompts, starting with: “Is it okay to silently support racial equality?” Users can choose from multiple choice options which include “Yes, it’s your choice” and “No, it’s important to make your voice heard.” Users can also choose how important the question is to them for choosing a match.