My Social Experiment of the Week...Tinder

Once upon a time Twitter had this cool feature whereby you could see tweets that people were tweeting on their phones nearby. It was a cool way to find & connect with local people online that were nearby. Maybe it still exists. I can't find it on my phone.

Anyway, since all the kids are using Snapchat now (it just passed Twitter) I was thinking about how far it's come since it's sexting origins. Then I thought to myself, hmmm . . . what apps today are considered the seedy underbelly of the internet? Tinder! Brainstorming never leads to anything good... I hear about people using Tinder all the time but I have stayed away from it because it is the proverbial seedy underbelly of the internet. But, I thought, maybe Tinder is reaching the cusp of becoming mainstream like Snapchat has.

So I signed up for Tinder. And Happn. And Badoo. The basic idea of these apps is that you see a bunch of people's profiles who are nearby and rate them up or down. If you and the other person both rate up, then the power to chat between you is unlocked. The apps all limit the number of profiles you can rate. And then they have a number of upsell paths which give you more powers in the app. Tinder is the clear winner in terms of user experience. Badoo is constantly trying to get you to invite your facebook friends to increase their user base, which is not very large - the same people appeared "nearby" no matter what part of Nashville I was in. Happn has an even smaller user base. I saw less than a dozen people during the week.

So I mainly focused my time on Tinder. To maximize my reach I purchased unlimited "swipes", their name for profile ratings. I had intended to the Google Play money I'd stored up by completing Google surveys, but it dinged my credit card instead because the purchase of "One Month" was actually a recurring subscription. Sneaky little buggers. Then I went to town swiping. I figured the more swiping I did, the more chance of a match. Eventually I got some. I also saw a lot of people I know!

My first match was named "Maggie". I reveal her name, because I'm pretty sure it was not real. "Maggie" immediately inserted sexual innuendos into the conversation & I quickly realized this was likely a scam. But how does one scam someone on Tinder? I was curious and so I played along. Basically, the scammer says they want to meet for illicit activity and then sends you a link. The link is to a site that you put a debit card # into to "verify" your identity. Of course, what the scammer does with the # is empty your account. No, I did not give the scammer my credit card to learn this either. Later another scammer matched me, and I discovered they quickly leave if you immediately say you're not interested. Business models of scammers probably shouldn't fascinate me so much, but they do.

So the seedy underbelly is still clearly there, but what about those mainstream users who aren't just interested in a hookup or trying to scam you. Seeing nice folks I knew wasn't enough. Maybe they were all freaks and I just didn't know it. Unlikely, but I really wanted to meet someone new who wasn't just using the app to find a new romantic partner.

A Win Luckily, I swiped Emily right. I saw she went to UNL in her profile so we had a point of commonality in Lincoln. Emily swiped me right too, I told her about our connection and she informed me that she had started the local Nebraska Alumni Association. I told her all about how Cara, my wife, had gone to UNL and and we'd moved here so she could continue her education at Vanderbilt. (See, honey, I do brag about you!) She excitedly invited us to checkout the club and we are totally going to check out the club. And she wasn't the only nice person I met, either!

An Epic Fail Some people, however, expect everyone on the app is looking for love of some sort. Even if you ask them questions about the business that they own. If you suggest getting coffee or beer with such a person, they will assume it's a date. Yeah, I know. I probably should have realized this. So instead of networking tonight I got angrily texted while I waited for the no show. She had decided to look me up 5 minutes beforehand and had discovered that I had a family and therefore must be some horrible creep. I am all over the internet. With my kids. And Cara. Not exactly something I'm trying to keep secret, but I still feel really bad about it. Now I am explicitly telling everyone I meet that I am interested in friends and nothing more just to be sure though.

So will your kids be on Tinder soon? Probably. And their profile pictures will be of their favorite minecraft skins or Pokémon. Swipe right for pikachu and Steve. Swipe left for mooshroom and beedrill. It can't possbly be weirder than Ameba.