Features

Let’s face it, the U.S. election was a polarizing event, and now that it’s over, people in both camps are weary of those in the other. This can make two strangers who meet via a dating app hesitant about each other. Should they talk politics or not? Will political party allegiance be a factor in whether or not the relationship moves forward?

More and more daters are wondering where their dates stand politically than ever before. For many, it’s not about playing politics, but about connecting over shared values. Conservatives and Democrats are very divided in what’s most important on a more personal level, so much so that it can affect romantic relationships.

Selecting your Gender on Tinder

Last month, Tinder rolled out a new feature for its popular dating app that provides daters with more gender options to complete their profiles. Following a similar move by OkCupid, Tinder users will be given more options than just “male” and “female” when selecting a gender.

By selecting the “More” option, users can choose between almost 40 identities, including “non-binary,” “transgender woman,” “transgender man,” “transmasculine,” “agender,” “two-spirit” and “other.” Users can also write in their own gender identity if none of these options apply.

According to website Slate, this was a move forward by Tinder to reach out to the trans community, who have reported being discriminated against and harassed on the app. Trans users were frequently reported as “spam,” or accused of trolling on the app, typically by other users who weren’t happy to be matched with someone who was trans. As a result of this false reporting, trans users often found themselves unfairly blocked, as Tinder didn’t have the capacity to thoroughly verify each complaint.

Since Tinder launched in 2012, new users have been given two options to describe themselves: male or female. For much of the population, the decision was easy. But for a significant portion, those two words posed a problem.

Transgender and gender non-conforming Tinder users had no way to accurately identify, and many experienced harassment as a result. When news of their troubling experiences reached company CEO Sean Rad, he decided the app was in need of an update.

New Tinder users are now presented with three options: 'male,' 'female,' and 'more.' Selecting 'more' reveals dozens of new terms members can use to describe their identity. The company partnered with media advocacy organization GLAAD to develop a list of nearly 40 auto-fill suggestions. Users can also type in their own perferred terms.

Though the US Presidential Election is over, the nation remains deeply divided along party lines. Many Americans have made jokes about moving to Canada in the past, but this week, the Canadian immigration website’s server broke down because of all the traffic from unhappy American voters.

Enter Maple Match, a dating app which matches Americans and Canadians for potential romance. The company took an opportunity to make lemonade out of political lemons.

Maple Match was beta testing its service earlier this year, and this month seized the opportunity to launch its new app to help Americans feeling less than happy with their country’s choices. The app's tagline is “make dating great again,” similar to the slogan for President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.

Maple Match’s technology is straightforward. It offers the same photo-based profile that Tinder does, but there is no swiping. You indicate your citizenship and your desired citizenship, and then you can look through potential matches and start messaging whomever you like.

Tinder is on a roll. After announcing a partnership with Spotify and introducing the ‘Boost’ feature to promote profiles, the dating app is launching yet another update. The newest feature is called Smart Photos, and it hopes to help users put their best face (literally) forward.

The Smart Photos algorithm automatically determines which pictures are a user’s best. It works by cycling the photos on your profile so different ones appear as your primary image. As it does so, it logs the response to each image and calculates which scores you the most likes or right swipes.

Once the algorithm has fully assessed your photo selection, it determines which image is the strongest to lead with and automatically reorders your pictures to show the best ones first. In testing, users saw up to a 12% increase in matches.

Hinge just announced the relaunch of its new self-dubbed “relationship app” as an alternative to dating apps, which have garnered a reputation over the years that the people using them aren’t all that interested in finding relationships. Hinge developers overhauled the app's look and feel as well as its functionality, and are now charging $7 per month for members to use it.

Hinge has been working on the new app for a year, though details weren’t disclosed. However, the company did launch a website revealing its escape from the “dating apocalypse” that is now online dating, named for the controversial New York Times article declaring the end of dating culture thanks to apps like Tinder.

Tinder has become an incredibly popular way to meet, but it has led to a lack of serious online daters looking for real relationships. The game-like swiping functionality of Tinder has created several copycat dating apps in the industry, each one claiming to produce better results and cut down on the fake profiles. So far however, nothing has made a significant dent in Tinder’s appeal or market share.