“His name is Todd, he’s 20, and he plays football at Yale,” I overheard in the stacks room on Wednesday, January 16th. This Hewitt senior was raving about a guy she met on Tinder. She passed her iPhone around amongst the three girls she was talking to, and they nodded in approval, agreeing that the male on the screen was good looking. Intrigued, I asked what “Tinder” is. She explained it to me.
I immediately grabbed my phone and downloaded it.
Tinder is an app that launched in October and and now hosts over 35 million user profiles. When you search for it in the iTunes App Store, it is the one with a flame as the icon.
P.S. If you are wondering about the title like I did:
Tinder (n.) – dry, flammable material, such as wood or paper, used for lighting a fire.
The app closely resembles the original layout of Facebook. If you watched The Social Network, you would have learned that it started out as two girls’ photos side-by-side, left to the audience to decide who is more attractive.
On Tinder, you scroll through people’s profiles, pressing the red “X” to stamp someone’s profile picture with a “Nope” if you don’t like him or her, and pressing the green heart (“Like”) if you do. Tinder does not notify you of others’ votes. The only results of which you are notified are mutual likes. And don’t worry–if you like someone and are not immediately informed that they liked you back, this does not mean that they “Nope”‘ed you. He/she probably has not seen your picture yet.
It’s exhilarating to see “You have a new match!” appear on the screen. What does this mean other than a greater-than-expected confidence boost? You are now able to chat one another. No additional personal information is revealed.
Tinder presents people who are in your area as possible contenders. It’s basically Match.com for the younger generation. It’s even backed by Match.com owner, InterActiveCorp (IAC). You log onto it via Facebook, and it only displays your first name, age, and a few photos from your profile. It also shows your mutual Facebook friends and interests.
Unfortunately, you can’t filter “legitimate New York City private school boys,” so you end up flipping through many Jersey Shore cast member wannabes before finding someone decent. I also could have sworn I came across the singer of Gangnam Style upon my first scroll through.
I saw a student walking down the stairs who bumped into another girl because her head was down, eyes glued to her iPhone screen. She was Tindering. Yes, it is a verb. Get used to it because you’ll be hearing it a lot around school. Tinder has been buzzing in the Hewitt halls as I have watched many girls go from, “It’s so dangerous. All the people on there are pedophiles” to “I’m officially addicted.”
Anabelle Kleinberg ’14 texted me, “I just downloaded it today, and I already have seven matches!” followed by a snapshot of the list of her suitors.
I guess there’s always the risk of the person you’re talking to being a phony, but maybe I’ve just been watching way too much MTV Catfish.
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