Profiles

Popular news comedy television show The Daily Show covered an interesting topic recently – sexual racism in online dating. In the segment, produced by Jessica Williams (Daily Show correspondent) and Ronny Chieng, the two explore what this term means, and how it affects so many online daters.

There are definitely racial stereotypes when it comes to sex and dating, both overt and subtle. Most of us think of attraction in terms of physical preferences. Many women prefer tall men or strong biceps for instance. Lots of guys prefer thin women, or women with blonde hair. Physical appearances are important in attraction, so it seems to follow that many daters would state their racial preferences on an online dating site, too.

But as the segment pointed out, having race preference in dating is a kind of racial discrimination. While you might prefer tall men or blonde women, chances are you are willing to date those who aren’t, or at least consider dating them. Many daters however refuse to date outside of their own racial preferences, going so far as to state in their online dating profiles that they won’t date people of a certain race.

This is where the term “sexual racism” comes in. Williams and Chieng interviewed Zach Stafford, a writer for The Guardian who noted: “When someone says something like, ‘I don’t date black people,’ talking about all black people, that would be referred to as sexual racism.”

There are some stereotypes that persist in American culture about who is considered “beautiful.” And some races are viewed in a negative way, especially African American women and Asian men.

Williams and Chieng also interviewed OkCupid Founder Christian Rudder, who studied many online dating trends for his book Dataclysm, race preferences included. “There is kind of a systemic racial bias pretty much in every dating site I’ve ever looked at,” Rudder said in his interview. “We found that 82 percent of non-black men have some bias against black women… And Asian men get the fewest messages and the worst ratings of any group of guys.”

For black women, there is the cultural perception among non-black men that they are not as pretty as white women. While this sounds hard to believe, in the segment, some daters admitted to receiving texts and messages saying just that. And for Asian men, the stereotype that many aren’t sexually endowed persists, despite it being a stereotype, making them the least messaged group on any dating app or site.

In fact, Williams posted a profile of Chieng on numerous dating apps to see what happened. She swiped right for every profile he was sent. He received no messages or matches in return, proving Rudder’s assertion correct.

Have you encountered sexual racism in online dating? How have you responded? We’d love to know – please leave a comment or send us an email.

Tinder has just released an update to its app. Now, Tinder users in New York City (where the new feature is being tested) can play "matchmaker" with other users by sharing profiles in their social networks outside of Tinder.

WIth the new feature, these users can share profiles of other users on messaging apps like Slack, Evernote, and Gmail, or social platforms like Linked In, Tumblr, GroupMe, and Wunderlist. Tinder users however are not able to share profiles over Facebook.

In theory, a matchmaking feature on Tinder makes sense because of the sheer volume of users - it expands your network and opportunities even more. The downside of this latest update is that other people on Tinder can take your profile, post and share it wherever they want, and you have no control.

People post their profiles on Tinder knowing that other users of the app can swipe and accept or reject them, but like with online dating sites where users don't necessarily want their work colleagues or family members to know they are signed up - swiping and matching has always been done within the confines of the app. Even though you sign up on Tinder with your Facebook account, and photos are pulled from your Facebook page, your activity on Tinder isn’t posted to your Facebook account for all to see. The two are kept separate for privacy. 

Our work and love lives have generally been kept separate for good reason. Let’s say you have a business meeting with some important clients, who are connected through your boss (and to you) on a platform like Slack or LinkedIn. You probably wouldn’t want them to know how you present yourself on a dating app – as it could be very different from your professional persona. In Slack, you can send a Tinder profile you received to your entire work team if you want. In LinkedIn, you can share the Tinder profile with the general LinkedIn public. (This might make for a good revenge plot if you are upset with a co-worker or an ex girlfriend.)

If you share over Wunderlist, you can essentially make the profile you are sharing part of your “to-do” list. If you want to save and read someone’s profile later, you can do this when you share with Pocket.

Once you share a profile, the recipient gets a link to open the profile in Tinder. If they don’t have an account, they are prompted to join in order to view. (The shared links expire after 72 hours or five clicks, so at least there is a limit on sharing one profile.)

New York is a testing ground for this app feature, so it might be tweaked before it’s launched to other cities.

Will this new feature work for Tinder users? It's hard to tell, but it definitely will make online dating not only more interconnected, but more complicated. When you blur the lines between public and personal and don't give people the capacity to maintain some control over their own profiles, chances are, they won't stick around.

How do you know if that cute guy you matched with on your dating app is really who he says he is? The hard truth is – you don’t, at least until you meet in person.

One consistent issue with online dating (and social media in general) has been users setting up fake profiles. Often, these fake profiles are used for catfishing – or targeting and scamming other users or members of the same service. Online dating site Badoo has decided to address the problem with its own newly-launched photo and profile verification system.

Many online daters in the U.S. have heard of OkCupid or Tinder, but they haven’t heard of Badoo. Despite this, it is a global giant in the online dating industry with 300 million registered users in over 190 countries, bigger than all of the popular U.S. dating services – even Tinder. Plus, the company has 400,000 signups every day, mostly in Europe and South America.

According to Badoo, the new verification system will hopefully eliminate catfishing from the service altogether. When a new user signs up, they are asked to verify their profile. Badoo then sends them a request for a photo – and the new user has to perform a specific gesture that Badoo assigns. (The company notes that it is a unique and specific gesture, not a common one like a “thumbs-up.”) Badoo will then make sure it's you by looking at the other photos on your profile along with the unique pose. You may even be asked to do another pose. The whole process takes less than a minute since the company has 5,000 moderators worldwide checking them out, so it’s pretty efficient.

If a user chooses not to verify a photo, they could be excluded from other users’ views who only want to connect with verified profiles.

The new verification system is another step in Badoo’s strategy to appeal to female online daters. With the verification system, Badoo intends for female daters to feel more secure in signing up and using the service, since they are often the ones who are targeted with fake profiles and messages.

This seems to be a strategic move. The company recently bought popular female-centric dating app Lulu, where women rate the men they date for other women, as a referral or warning system, depending on how you look at it. Badoo’s head Andrey Andreev hired Lulu’s founder Alexandra Chong as President of Badoo, and the company intends to set up a U.S. office to attract more of a presence in the States. According to TechCrunch Andreev also has invested in Bumble, another female-friendly dating app.

The new version of Badoo is available in the iTunes store, Google Play, and the Windows store.

Hinge is focusing on helping their customers find long-term relationships these days in order to compete with apps like Tinder, an app known mostly for its hook-up reputation. One of the ways Hinge is catering to the more serious dating crowd is by studying their behavior online.

Now, Hinge has published a new relationship study, with data from 1,000 couples who met through Hinge within two months of joining the service. The company found several insights about what seemed to work for these couples and the experiences they shared.

One interesting revelation from the study is that men who are successful with dating apps (or at least with Hinge) were actually pickier than your average guy. Instead of endlessly swiping right in the hopes that a few women will respond in kind, these guys on Hinge decided to be a little more selective in choosing their matches.

On the other hand, women from the study who managed to find love on Hinge turned out to be less picky than your average female dater. The successfully coupled females on Hinge were 20% less picky on average. (Yes, they were swiping right more, not less – keeping more of an open mind.)

This change of approach seemed to make a winning combo for both genders. Also, in case you were wondering, Sunday turns out to be the best day of the week for online dating, so be sure to log in to your app. Response rates are 36% higher on Sunday evenings compared to any other day of the week. (Perhaps because the Tinder dates over the weekend didn’t quite work out as planned?)

So, if you’re using a dating app but want a more focused, successful experience (read: not just hooking up with people or messaging endlessly), here are some additional stats for you:

• Don’t just stop messaging, because you never know. Couples who met on Hinge messaged an average of 16 people before finding their matches.
• Messaging can work. On average, couples who met through Hinge messaged for 3 days and swapped 25 messages before giving their phone numbers to their partners. (However, don’t get carried away and message endlessly – try to get to the date sooner than later!)
• 80% of the couples listed their education and job, because they considered them important factors in making decisions about potential dates.
• Don’t expect instant gratification. Couples who met on Hinge went on 4-5 dates on average before meeting their significant others.

The bottom line? Keep an open mind, and keep your options open. For more on this dating app you can read our review of Hinge.

Tinder has released a new update for users to help improve the photo selection process and enhance messaging options.

The update is a result of one of Tinder’s most requested features: the ability to upload profile photos to the app directly from your camera roll. The old version of the app pulled photos from Facebook only, which didn’t give users much flexibility. Instead of being able to pull photos from their camera roll specifically for the dating app, they would have to post photos to their Facebook profile (and advertise their flirtatious Tinder selfies to all their friends), or try to get around the problem by creating a fake Facebook profile (not so easy to do), or adding “private” photo albums.

Now, users can pull photos directly from their camera rolls, bypassing Facebook. And to enhance this feature, Tinder has made cards and photos larger on the screen.

While this comes as a relief to many Tinder fans, another issue has been created. Tinder already has a challenge with some users creating fake profiles to scam other users, but the fact that every user has to tie their account to a real Facebook account made things a bit more secure. Now with the latest update, it’s much easier to post fake photos, so there might be a backlash with the current security measures.

Co-founder of Scamalytics Dan Winchester noted that this is good news for scammers, because it reduces the obstacle of having to create a fake Facebook profile. “Scammers almost universally rely on faking their identity in order to execute their scams. On a photo dating app like Tinder, clearly the photo is one of the key things they need to fake...adding direct from camera roll makes life even easier for scammers, and Tinder will want to balance the undoubted appeal of this feature with users against the increased security risk introduced into their platform.”

Another important feature in the new update concerns messaging. With a nod to Facebook features, Tinder is allowing you to “like” a message by tapping a green heart that appears next to a message you receive. iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users can also use 3D touch to preview links sent within messages. And yes, emojis will now be available in larger format – just to make things more fun.

Tinder has also teamed up with GIPHY to allow users to exchange GIFs with their matches. (And yes, there are millions of your favorite GIFS  - including one of a Kristin Wiig character from Saturday Night Live and numerous cute kittens, in case you were wondering about the options.) To use a GIF, you can select the blue “GIF” button found at the bottom left of the chat interface.

To find out more about this dating app, please read our review of Tinder.

Imagine you're a recent college graduate. You're excited, nervous, naïve, courageous. The whole world is in front of you, waiting to be explored.

Then reality sets in. Leaving college means finding a job, owing rent, dealing with health insurance, and paying off student loans. Before long, you're daydreaming about the blissful days before the cap and gown.

Sound familiar? Online dating can be a similar experience. You sign up with all the excitement and naivete of that new college grad, but over time you become disillusioned. Messages go unanswered. Mutual matches aren't made. Dates are postponed and canceled. What good is online dating if you aren't actually going on dates?

There may be very real reasons you're not getting the dates you hoped for – some obvious, others more obscure. Before you give up on it for good, take a look at these 5 reasons online dating might not be working for you.

1. You're not ready for it. If your last relationship is still fresh in your mind, it may be too soon to jump into online dating. It's unhealthy to start something new before you've healed from the old, despite what they say about getting back on the horse. Take time off to focus on yourself and feel solid in your singlehood, then try online dating again.
2. You're just going through the motions. Maybe everyone you know is on Tinder, so you decided to get Tinder. Or maybe all your closest friends are in serious relationships, so you feel pressured to settle down. Neither of those is a good reason to join an online dating service. If you're doing it because you think you have to, not because you want to, dates can tell that your heart isn't in it. Instant attraction killer.
3. You're not trying hard enough. No one wants to look desperate, but putting in zero effort is not the answer. Think Goldilocks – not too much, not too little, just right. An empty profile is a turn-off. One blurry bathroom selfie doesn't cut it. And if your idea of a smooth opening line is “hey,” you're in for a rude awakening.
4. You're unapproachable. Your dating profile should be inviting, not alarming. If you're writing a laundry list of things you don't like, don't want, and won't stand for, prospective dates will be scared away. Instead of focusing on the negatives, write about what you do like and are looking for. Just be careful that you don't veer into totally unrealistic territory, or you'll make yourself unapproachable in a different way.
5. You're hiding your real self. You want to craft the perfect profile, but it's pointless if your idea of “perfect” doesn't match who you really are. Let your real self shine through, even the bits you think are geeky or weird. The right partner will be more attracted to that profile than the sanitized version you thought you should write.