Author: Cinzia Giacomini

28 nov And that eighty percent is now taking over Tinder

What can a photo show? Appearance, of course. Attractiveness. Perhaps personality. But other aspects emerged in the process of discussing match selection, for example, more obvious traits such as age or race, and also less evident aspects such as perceived education disparities. These aspects became apparent when interviewees were asked to specify which matches they rejected.

As in past research, interviewees used a process known as filtering when choosing a match. However, here, filtering is examined in the pre-interpersonal communication phase, via profile assessment.

Photos reveal more obvious traits such as race and age. Colin was asked about who he swiped left on, and replied: ‘Well, the non-Caucasian, and someone older than 30, that would be goodbye.' Colin and others also mentioned their Facebook likes helped signal the intelligence or general interests of a potential match. Christina revealed the following:

Because Tinder users have to swipe through every potential match presented to them, filtered only by geographical proximity, age, and sex, people could perhaps discover they are attracted to those previously pre-filtered out

... For the most part I'm just attracted to white men, and they have to be fit ... I like very intellectual, nerdy guys, and when it's all like these pictures of them just partying with their friends, on the boat, at these techno parties, at the festival, it's like the same shit over and over.

I had more than one interviewee tell me that duck-face selfies signal low education. Erwin prefaced his growing pessimism for Tinder with the following: ‘I consider eighty percent of the country to be of lesser intelligence. ' When asked for an example, he said: ‘There are so many spelling mistakes.