In case you’re out of the loop, one of the few web/app online “dating” properties not owned by InterActiveCorp,i the proudly phembinist Bumbleii is putting wimminziii phirst by “powah”.iv Because that’s obviously what powah means – texting first – innit ?
Put on to Bumble by some girlfriends, and entirely green to the online dating morass, I was bored enough to download the app… until I realised that sign-up required a Facebook page “for security reasons.”v Still, I was bored and ever eager to poke holes in the impotent echafaudage wherever and whenever it may be found. So despite the incredible hurdles that lay before me, like Hannibal I charged from the north and “Gabe Donkersloot“vi was born, popping bubble gum and ready to similarly pop some ideological bubbles.
Plugging the necessary bits into Bumble, adding some pictures, and tagging the profile description with the head-scratchingly transparent and marginally trollish “Well-to-do family man. 185cm.”vii, the experiment was afoot. But after just an hour of swiping this way and that way through the marshes of 18-24yo,viii I’d exhausted the surprisingly limited resources of the candidates within 161kmix of me, and the app informed me that I was “out of people…” and that I should “check back soon or invite some friends!”. Lol as if poor Gabe had any friends to invite. Why won’t someone, anyone think of the less fortunate!! Damn you, cruel, cruel world!!!!1
So in a geographical area of something like 1.5 mn smartphone-addicted Albertans, of which ~125`000 are females in the specified age range according to govstats, only ~300 are using this app ? What kind of sense does that make ? Or is this another one of those “our algorithm only smartmatches you to the results you’ve always had before based on our big data analtrons” ? I’m not sure there’s a better explanation available.
Anyways, compared to Tinder,x which I also spent a few minutes on, Bumble is clearly the trendier of the two based on the subjective quality of the talent presented therein. Bumble features a smaller but far more finely curated crop of talent while the old guard was by and large a sea of sea dragons,xi barely eliciting 1/10th of my positive feedback and therefore >10x the waste.xii Add to Bumble’s credit that the UI was much cleaner and more intuitive, allowing users to scroll through pictures without tapping on the profile pic, and it’s altogether a more compelling package, such as it is. Not that any of it works, mind you, at least not for poor Gabe yours truly, but we can’t rule out that better descriptions and photos could’ve been chosen. Being a complete n00b at online dating, and a arrogant entrant at that, I probably didn’t do myself any favours.
Ultimately, if you’re actually looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right rather than just “dating now,” you’re better of with a matchmaker like Yente (ie. someone who sees your MeatWoT from a bird’s eye view and can graph the connections accordingly). But since you’re too cool and “progressive” for that, you might as well stick with Bumble. It’s the best divertissement of the sordid lot.
But if you still want more than a pretty online picture yet are stuck with no other dot-connector than your smartphone, you’re better off with Pokemon Go. At least with that you’ll be able to see your potential matches in action!
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- Bumble was co-founded by ex-Tinderite Whitney Wolfe but is 79% owned by Andrey Andreev of Euro-dating platform Badoo fame. Bumble was launched in December 2014 and seems to be picking up
steembuzz. But with no published usage figures, nor any relevance between they might possibly publish and the cold concrete of reality, who’s to say.↩ - The CEO had the following to say on the topic of feminism :
If you look at where we are in the current heteronormative rules surrounding dating, the unwritten rule puts the woman a peg under the man—the man feels the pressure to go first in a conversation, and the woman feels pressure to sit on her hands… If we can take some of the pressure off the man and put some of that encouragement in the woman’s lap, I think we are taking a step in the right direction, especially in terms of really being true to feminism. I think we are the first feminist, or first attempt at a feminist dating app.
It’s easy to be the first when you’ve never cracked a history book and can twist “feminist” to mean this and not that as befits you. Inquiring minds would like to know what was so “sexist” about Lavalife, Webdate, etc. And no, you don’t get to pretend like there’s a difference between websites and apps. Grow up. ↩
- In tech!↩
- Not that there aren’t a few fillie profiles I came across where the brighter keys in the drawer openly commented on their newfound respekt for dudes typically having to make the first move – not in the least bit unlike the young ladies who find themselves in “independent career women” roles working a gruelling 60-80 hours per week (and therefore enslaved to their bosses instead of their husbands) when they’d rather be going for walks with their friends in the river valley and looking after their children and suddenly find that they have newfound respekt for their workaholic husbands. But who could’ve known! Not like factory owners initiated the whole “equal right to work” movement in order to undercut the unions and drive down labour costs. Couldn’t be. Not like making the first move isn’t “more just,” etc.↩
- Quoth the bumblers :
Right now we use Facebook to pull important information like your name, age, school and job to create your profile. This is important not only because it makes your signup process super fast, but it also ensures that information is genuine and reliable. In the future we intend to add additional methods of signing up.
LOL! ENSUUUUREESS!!!!1 Because no girl ever lied about her age to get into a trendy bar, just like no guy ever lied about his age to buy booze, right ? ↩
- Inspired by some other friends who sent me this from their trip to Amsterdam a few weeks back :
Go figure that I didn’t even notice the galerie’s name, so distracted was I by the ~1970 Citroen DS. (The 1955-1968 models had narrower single-bulbed headlights instead of the glass-domed double-headlights pictured here). ↩
- The height measurement was intended to tease out the taller lasses while the “family man” bit was intended to make it eminently clear that prospective applicants shouldn’t expect to be my one and only. Granted, perhaps “Seeking Arrangements” or the local classifieds would’ve been a better place to dangle the “well-to-do” bait. ↩
- I tried the 18-27yo range at first before very quickly realising the error of my ways. I’ve never started dating a girl who was over 19yo and almost surprised myself at how unbecoming I found girls in their mid-20s, mostly for their personal descriptions. God help the ones in their late-20s and 30s! (Or God help them find older men than I). The younger ones were just so much more curious and full of life! Not that I gave a shit about how many dudes the older ones had banged compared to the “fresher” ones – hell, I swiped right on a few self-declared moms – but the amount of stupid inherent in older chix (as demonstrated by their group-shotted / je suis charlie-branded affiliation with the specifically retarded) was no match for even the strongest college brainwashing one could expect in the younger girls.
It’s harder to fault the younger girls for being on these apps too – their whole lives are ahead of them and this must just seem like a “fun” thing to do. The “older” girls, however, are on these apps because they’ve exhausted every other option. One of these is not like the other.↩
- You can tell it’s an American app because of the 100 miles “magic number” thinking. Why this magic number and not that one ? Don’t ask so many questions, terrorist. Enjoy your limited range, slow-recharging electric car and like it. It’s optimal for humanity. It’s the future! ↩
- I couldn’t quite bring myself to try JSwipe / JDate. The Jewish community here isn’t big enough to warrant the bother of a politically inopportune collision. Just imagine all the old Jewish hag moaning… I’d never hear the end of it!↩
- Are you familiar with the expression that you have to slay a few dragons to get to the princess ?↩
- Although 10 x 0 ~= 0. This, for the record – and lest there be any further question on the topic – is why barriers to entry are a thing and why “mass adoption” is literally death. Not kinda maybe “sorta” death. Mass adoption is complete, utter, and inevitable ruin – by definition and without historical exception. It’s amazing what you can learn when you dust off those dead tree thingies on the shelves of the library.↩