HINGE: A critique of the app “designed to be deleted”

The year is 2045. Pandemics are but a distant memory. Long gone are the days of facemasks, fear, and hoarding toilet rolls, and with them, all remnants of face-to-face interaction. Relationships are now maintained in an exclusively virtual setting, through online avatars and emojis. A child asks their parents how they met. On Hinge, how else? We FaceTimed every day during the lockdown of 2020 and watched Tiger King together via Netflix Party.

Of course, this virtual dystopia is a mere figment of bored imagination, though not intangible given current circumstances. Thankfully, technology has come a long way since the invention of the internet in the summer of 1976. As a result, social interaction cannot be thwarted by a mere pandemic. Forums, networks and groups allow us to expand our social circles and interact with more people than ever before, and all from the safety and comfort of our own homes. With this comes an inevitable enhancement of our dating lives. Match.com was one of the first few dating sites to be launched back in 1995, but 15 years and 195 episodes of MTV’s Catfish later, there are thousands of virtual dating options connecting singletons everywhere. However, such apps have been met with scrutiny and skepticism because of their shallow approach to ‘love’. Do we still subscribe to the ‘swipe right’ culture that reduces people to mere photos?

In recent years there has been a call for more a more holistic approach to online dating. Daters are bored of cheesy chat-up lines and one-night stands: they want soulmates. In 2016, the Match Group-owned app Hinge, underwent a total rebranding, potentially changing the e-dating scene forever. Swipes, timers and games were replaced by a new interface and complex algorithm. Hinge states: “In today’s digital world, singles are so busy matching that they’re not actually connecting, in person, where it counts. Hinge is on a mission to change that. So, we built an app that’s designed to be deleted.” But just how successful is it?

Hinge’s approach to creating “profiles with personality” is where the app has the upper hand on competitor dating sides. When signing up, users provide a plethora of personal information: gender, height, ethnicity, if you have (or want to have) children, hometown, job, education, religious beliefs, political beliefs, attitudes towards alcohol, smoking and drugs. After uploading photos, users are invited to write answers to three questions or prompts to upload to their profile, ranging from dating failures to biggest turn-ons or secret talents to your ideal partner. More than just a photo, you create a well-rounded picture of yourself: your very own 21st-century lonely-hearts ad. This enables both the app and potential partners to get a good idea of who you are and what you want. Across the board, users seemed impressed by the success of this process. Some said: “people on [Hinge] seem more like the kind of person [they] would stumble into without a dating app” and that they “get a better feel for people’s personalities due to the questions”. Replying to “My only condition is…” with “I’m always on top” is rather indicative of someone’s personality. Whether you strike up a conversation or avoid them like the plague, is your choice.

The questions act as a primary barrier to the contemptible arrogance that saturates the dating scene. However, one Hinger explained that all dating apps are “equally full of good and bad people”; perhaps no amount of fine-tuning the algorithm can fix the essential issue that humans come across in dating: each other. Whilst Tinder leaves the surprise of personality until the first date, Hinge’s profiles allow users to splay theirs out for cross-examination, often at their own detriment. Though one user stated that “the worst [answers] are about traveling/alcohol”, another might be totally fanatical about your drunk ventures during your gap year in Southeast Asia. The line between “sarcastic and funny” and plain arrogant is dangerously thin. Answering “my biceps” to “What’s your greatest strength?” might get a laugh, but if the most spontaneous act is that you randomly “flew to Geneva to go skiing for 2 weeks”, you clearly lack both impulse and self-awareness. The pressure is on to make your profile answers fun and approachable, whilst attracting the right sort of partner.

Ultimately, the app only acts as a wingman. It prompts you to make yourself look mildly interesting on your profile, but once you progress to the conversational stage, you are on your own. Users’ submissions for best and worst conversation starters were shockingly direct: from “I am sexually attracted to you” to “Your name is the sound I make when I orgasm”. Others were more successful with less suggestive topics, such as “top 5 used emojis and why”. But some one-liners can be much more offensive, as one user revealed. “People used to always ask me if I was like ‘Chinese’, ‘Japanese’, ‘Korean’ etc as like the first thing they sent me”, she said, “or send me messages in those languages”. To maximise the success of interactions, users can apply filters to their search. Though sorting profiles by age range and distance are seemingly practical features, including filters for ethnicity and religion is a questionable practice that allows people to discriminate in ways they would never dream of doing face-to-face. Despite this, Hinge’s marketing meant it was less likely to attract such outrageous clientele: “on Tinder I used to get like seriously weird Asian fetish messages. Like, a lot”. Yet the apps can only facilitate this sort of intolerable bigotry, which can only be blamed on the keyboard warriors who enact it. Perhaps if you lack the ability to start a conversation something appropriate, invite someone else to start the chat.

If you manage a reasonable conversation, you may find yourself with a date: your chance to make a lasting impression. So, I asked Hinge users to submit their best and worst dating stories, and this is what I learned.

Trust your gut, and your friends. One Hinger said that her worst date was with a “good looking guy that had pretty odd/insulting banter when we chatted but I thought was quite clever and funny, so I decided to meet him. An hour before our date he stopped replying and I was left waiting around alone in the street. Turns out my friend had been on a Tinder date with the same guy two years prior and he’s a massive catfish, rude and very socially abnormal, so I didn’t miss out on much.”

Keep it upbeat. “I went on a date during [Edinburgh] Fringe and said I was from London, then he started talking about funerals because the only time he had been to London was for his friend’s dad’s funeral.” Poor guy.

Do not trust a “big baller attitude”. Even in 2020, you get a few people who insist on paying for everything. One dater described a date so awful she had to get plastered just to “make [it] bearable”. At the end of the night, he was adamant they got an Uber home, offering to pay as part of his coercion. His frivolous mood ended in disappointment when she did not invite him in, and the next morning she received a bill for the Uber she hadn’t wanted to take, as well as a video of herself drunk in McDonald’s.

Keep it casual. “Also [I] was a massive freak and tried to shake his hand when I was leaving which made me seem very weird.”

But avoid getting too close. “The first time we slept together my nose ring got caught on hers and it almost ripped mine out of my nose. It was 4 am when it happened, and I had a at tut at 9 am the same morning… had to attend the tut with a ridiculously bent nose ring with a red diamanté on it.”

Don’t do anything you wouldn’t tell your mum. “First Hinge date I ever went on I stupidly decided to bring the boy back to my parents’ house. I tried to sneak him out, failed, and ended up getting screamed at by mum in front of said lover from the night before. Very embarrassing.”

And remember that your actions can have disturbing consequences. From my severely lactose intolerant friend: “I went to a very nice dinner and all was good, he ordered dessert which we shared”. But the dessert was rich in cream and lots of lactose. She “proceeded to be ill and [vomit] all week”. Was it worth it?

Hopeless romantic that I am, I maintain faith in Hinge. In a time of severe social isolation, social media and dating apps are some of the few ways to feel connected. So, if your dating life needs spicing up, download the “app designed to be deleted” and make some new connections. Some will last a lifetime, some will end in tears, and others will end in promiscuity “at S Club 7’s agent’s house”?

HINGE: A critique of the app “designed to be deleted”

Comic strip by Zsófi Mayer.

Related content