Demonstrating the poor judgment and incessant need to have the last word that characterizes many of its users, Tinder picked a fight with a journalist on Twitter and issued a stream of defensive tweets Tuesday night.
Last week, Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales published a story, “Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse,” in which she detailed the dire state of modern dating and blamed it on the proliferation of instantly gratifying apps like Tinder.
“New York guys, from our experience, they’re not really looking for girlfriends,” one young woman at a bar told Sales. “They’re just looking for hit-it-and-quit-it on Tinder.”
“I hooked up with three girls, thanks to the Internet, off of Tinder, in the course of four nights, and I spent a total of $80 on all three girls,” a young man told her.
Quotes like these would lead you to believe that Tinder has, indeed, had an apocalyptic effect on the dating scene. But the people behind the app want you to know that Sales got it all wrong. They believe that Tinder is about connections and meaningful relationships.
In a seemingly endless Twitter rant Tuesday evening, Tinder’s social-media team attempted to defend the company against the claim that it was contributing to the downfall of love and romance. The Tinder Twitter account began by calling out Sales by name.
Hey @nancyjosales — that survey is incorrect. If you're interested in having a factual conversation, we're here. https://t.co/SLWlTLvJuf
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
–@VanityFair & @nancyjosales — we have lots of data. We surveyed 265,000 of our users. But it doesn’t seem like you’re interested in facts.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Our actual data says that 1.7% of Tinder users are married — not 30% as the preposterous GlobalWebIndex article indicated.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Next time reach out to us first @nancyjosales… that’s what journalists typically do.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Then Tinder attempted to save face and combat the image of its app presented by Sales. Here’s a choice selection from the tirade.
The Tinder Generation is real. Our users are creating it. But it’s not at all what you portray it to be.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Tinder creates experiences. We create connections that otherwise never would have been made. 8 billion of them to date, in fact.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Tinder users are on Tinder to meet people for all kinds of reasons. Sure, some of them — men and women — want to hook up.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
But we know from our own survey data that it’s actually a minority of Tinder users.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
We have tons and tons of emails from people that have all kinds of amazing experiences on Tinder.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Then Tinder tried to make a point about its app somehow serving the greater good.
Talk to our many users in China and North Korea who find a way to meet people on Tinder even though Facebook is banned.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Talk to the female journalist in Pakistan who wrote just yesterday about using Tinder to find a relationship where being gay is illegal.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
The ability to meet people outside of your closed circle in this world is an immensely powerful thing.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
But really, at the end of the day, Tinder just wants to bring people together (in a totally non-disgusting way).
We love ALL of these #SwipedRight stories. Tinder is simply how people meet.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
So we are going to keep focusing on bringing people together. That’s why we’re here. That is why all of us at Tinder work so hard.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Then the company did its best Big Lebowski impression.
If you want to try to tear us down with one-sided journalism, well, that’s your prerogative.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
And much like a terrible person on Tinder, just when you thought the company was done, it pressed forward.
You could have talked about how everyone on Tinder is authenticated through Facebook. And how we show users the friends they have in common.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Or you could have talked about how everyone on Tinder is on an equal playing field.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
You could have talked about how users build a Tinder profile that expresses who they are.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Or how millions of Tinder users have connected their Instagram accounts, so potential matches can learn more about them.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Instead, your article took an incredibly biased view, which is disappointing.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Lest you think this is the end of Tinder (side note: why would you?), the company promised to forge on and keep “changing the world.”
But it’s not going to dissuade us from building something that is changing the world. #GenerationTinder
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Tinder has not yet responded to the Daily Dot’s query about just who was behind these petulant tweets. Was it a low-level social media assistant? Or perhaps it was Tinder CEO Chris Payne? Regardless, we’re definitely swiping left on this kind of defensiveness.
Illustration by Jason Reed