Like many millennials, I faced the rise of dating apps in our social ecosystem. There are now tons of them from the most classical (Tinder, Bumble, Once…) to the most subversive (Gleedn, Feeld, Pure…). My thumb swiped perhaps on hundreds and hundreds of profiles. As a dedicated user, I noticed some regular patterns among this jungle of profiles. I kindly propose you an overview of my inquiry.
At first glance, human beings seem very proud of their domestication of dogs and cats for few thousands of years. They stare at the camera while carrying their one-way-beloved cat even though it is clear that this poor creature try by all means to escape the suffocating hug of its master. Dogs deserve attention as well (although less) and are to be found in some profile pictures as well. The message behind these photos is unclear to me. But I have several explanations. (1) The user has a true love for their animal, it is part of their life. In this case, be prepared to share the bed with a third person. (2) They want to demonstrate their kindness, generosity and altruism by showing that they protect and love all forms of life. Were these qualities present in them, why to demonstrate it on a so cliché way? Beside pure narcissism, I have no explanation. (3) More subtly, at the turn of late twenty, young couples plan to go for a baby. However, and naturally enough, they want to be sure that there are with Mister or Miss Right. They need a proof of concept. This proof of concept will be a little cat or little dog. The will cherish it, spoil it, cuddle it and take care of it. This non-human being will be the center of their attention as if it were their future child: speaking about/to it as a real person, finding a dog-sitter, putting a picture of it on their desk at the office, being sad when it is ill, creating its own Instagram account… An individual hugging a cat or a dog should be interpreted as a red flag early enough for people who do not want children.
Second, in a special subgroup of users, one finds the wannabe intellectuals. Their more salient mise en scène consist in adopting a contemplating posture in front of a painting at the Louvre (for the most conservative) or at the Modern Tate (for the most progressist). These users want to inflate their cultural capital. Culture is like money: some people have it, other haven’t; some are greedy about, some are not; some like to show off, others do not… As for money, you can spend your cultural capital in a bling bling way or in a more distinguished way. Therefore, the bling bling consumer will love to selfie in front of The Joconde, Andy Warhol’s cans or perhaps Van Gogh’s nights. In contrast, the more educated would be portrayed in front of a Michel Basquiat’s or Frida Calo’s painting for both esthetic and political rationales. In both cases, these kinds of pictures make me remember a French quote: ‘Culture is like marmalade, the less one has the more one spreads it.’
Third, I noticed quite cynical individuals. These individuals seem to love picturing themselves in developed country (or what they consider as such) while hugging Nigerian children, playing football with Indian children, reconstructing of a bridge in Viet Nam, attesting the poverty in Brazilian favelas… These self-called descendents of Erasmus (not the exchange program, the Dutch guy) want to demonstrate their open-mindedness and anti-racism by adopting the most unconscious neocolonialist posture consisting in taking locals as performers to enhance their social aura. These dangerous journeys will have taught them to relativize about their lifestyle and to disconnect from material goods in order to favor authenticity and human connections. They will advocate for “degrowth” (as far as their basic needs are not endangered: stable Wi-Fi connection, no scarcity of the favorite organic coffee bean and vegan option in every restaurant). Racism lies sometimes in a very peculiar way in the most so-called anti-racists of us.
It makes me remember that “open-mindedness” appears to be a trendy motto in dating apps. It seems so fashionable to mention it in one’s bio. However I suspect that this world means the opposite it pretends to be. Ethnographically, this world seems a synonym of adopting Left-liberal values. Thus open-minded people will state against racists, transphobics, homophobics, global warming deniers, pro Putins, pro Trumps, pro Erdogans, pro Orbans, pro Lepens, pro Blozonaros, carnivores, capitalists, military soldiers, bankers, antivaxxers, conspiracists, conservatives, populists, pro-nuclear energy, pro-fossil energy… And, of course, also against all people nuanced about these subjects. Because being nuanced is being ambiguous and being ambiguous is tacitly supporting. At the end of the day, I just wonder the soundness of this definition if you deem not to talk to half of the population which do not check at least one of your criteria. I found a peculiar instantiation of this posture in an intriguing sentence I read in a profile: “Open-minded person looking for same-minded people”. What the hell does it mean? “I am super open, but only with people who think like me.”
A new species of individuals invented a plethora of new terms in order to define more accurately what they are looking for. For instance, the nuclear conception of the couple is nowadays on the decline. Many new ways of thinking relationships emerged: trouple, polyamoury, open relationship… The most triggering one I met in perhaps “ethical non-monogamy”. A quite strange formulation. I make me remember the Hundred-Night epoch when Sultan had 100 wives, but each of them knowing about the others. More seriously, I wonder why someone has to specify that they do it in an “ethical” way. You will never publicly describe yourself on your profile as a non-monogamist if you want to keep it secret. After the greenwashing: the ethicalwashing. Ethical non-monogamists want to be holier than the Pope (I do not know if the expression exists in English) and whiter than white. All this sounds suspicious to me. Beside these terms, I really love “sapiosexuals” who are not sexually attracted by a gender but by an intelligence. Again some wannabe intellectuals’ pretensions. They are so hype that gender is overrated. But I do not want to be harsh with sapiosexuals. They are simply gentlemen and gentlewomen who are seeking in the others what they do not have themselves. After all, we are always looking for what we scarce of.
As a conclusion, we can theorize what precedes in two points: distinction and narcissism. First, distinction is a bourdieusian concept in the core of construction and identification of social groups. Some groups adopt some conventions, some hobbies, some tastes and some goods in order to distinct themselves from other social groups. The identity is to be found in our daily practices that differentiate us from the others. Second, as I already state in a previous blog post, our postmodern ear is facing a rise of narcissism. This narcissism does not have to be understood in the usual way. The narcissism at stake here is not about an induvial endlessly loving themselves but about a contemporary tendency of defining oneself as someone special, an individual per se not reducible to any social class or whatsoever, being aware of oneself, taking care of oneself, endorsing strong human values, claiming a form of autonomy and independency and having a rich, plural and complex personality. This narcissism is not selfishness because we can recognize in other such an originality as well.