Tinder has reacted poorly to being heralded as the harbinger of the “dating apocalypse” in Vanity Fair magazine, going on a defensive rampage on social media.
An unknown employee at Tinder let off steam, sending 31 tweets from the company’s verified Twitter account in the space of an hour, in response to a story in the September issue in which the app was depicted as enabling a hook-up culture of instant gratification.
The feature quoted a psychology professor who said “the impression that there are thousands or millions of potential mates” created by Tinder and other dating apps encouraged men to pursue “a short-term mating strategy”, leading to unstable relationships and a rise in divorce rates.
“Little known fact: sex was invented in 2012 when Tinder was launched,” an employee at Tinder tweeted directly at Vanity Fair.
They then criticised the journalist Nancy Jo Sales for not seeking comment from the company, and for holding up her interviewees as being representative of all Tinder users.
“Next time reach out to us first @nancyjosales … that’s what journalists typically do.”
The Tinder Generation is real. Our users are creating it. But it’s not at all what you portray it to be.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
They also dismissed a statistic quoted by Sales on Twitter, but not in the feature article, that 30% of Tinder users are married as “preposterous”.
“Our actual data says that 1.7% of Tinder users are married,” the employee tweeted, before expounding at length on the “meaningful connections” and happy endings brought about by the app, citing the “tons and tons of emails” about “all kinds of amazing experiences” it has received from users.
“Talk to the female journalist in Pakistan who wrote just yesterday about using Tinder to find a relationship where being gay is illegal. Talk to our many users in China and North Korea who find a way to meet people on Tinder even though Facebook is banned.”
Tinder creates experiences. We create connections that otherwise never would have been made. 8 billion of them to date, in fact.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
“It’s about meeting new people for all kinds of reasons. Travel, dating, relationships, friends and a shit ton of marriages … talk to people that have made some of their best friends on Tinder,” the employee wrote over several tweets.
“The ability to meet people outside of your closed circle in this world is an immensely powerful thing. So we are going to keep focusing on bringing people together. That’s why we’re here. That is why all of us at Tinder work so hard.”
If you want to try to tear us down with one-sided journalism, well, that’s your prerogative.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
The employee tweeted their disappointment at Sales’ “incredibly biased view”, before concluding, somewhat ominously: “But it’s not going to dissuade us from building something that is changing the world. #Generation Tinder”
In the midst of the meltdown, Sales – a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of The Bling Ring – responded (somewhat implausibly) “My article isn’t even about Tinder lol”, before retweeting tweets praising her article.
Twitter users followed the exchange with glee.
“This reminds me when women tell a dude on Tinder they aren’t interested and he goes on an unhinged rant,” remarked one.
Read the full rant, for as long as the tweets remain up, at Tinder’s Twitter account.
In a statement, a Tinder spokesperson said “we were saddened to see that the article didn’t touch upon the positive experiences that the majority of our users encounter daily”.
“Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted,” the official spokesperson said.
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