I was recently made aware of a video called The Tinder Trap in which an Instagram model supposedly tricked hundreds of men on Tinder into meeting her at union square in New York. She and her crew did this by using cheap foreign labor to ‘flirt with the men.’\u00a0 That means that many virtual assistants (presumably both men and women) were misleading the men into thinking they were actually engaging with the woman in the pictures. Once she arrived (in a stretch limo) she got up on a stage set up with microphones, speakers and bodyguards.\u00a0 She immediately began to belittle the men and then went on to filter through them by publicly humiliating them for their height, how they dressed, and even their first name.\u00a0 Those left then were told to compete by doing things like push ups and sprints. The creators of the Tinder Trap video say that it was a social experiment to bring to light how people are treated on dating sites.\u00a0 It is clear if you watch all four minutes and thirty one seconds of this video that it is not only not<\/em> a social experiment but in no way does it bring light to the treatment.<\/p>\n The host of the event – the girl who set up all the men – has what seems to be obvious and mean spirited delight and humiliating the men. In the end she chooses a model like, very handsome man.\u00a0 Whether he is a plant, a fellow ‘actor’ or her current boyfriend is not clear. A social experiment – though not necessarily required to have a moral or a positive outcome – typically does.\u00a0 We like to see experiments that show the intrinsic good in people, that people do the right thing, that given a chance humanity comes through.\u00a0 Sure there are surprises and some of them aren’t so pleasant.<\/p>\n Bringing light to something –\u00a0 raising awareness – is not done this way.\u00a0 You do not raise awareness of animal abuse by bringing a bunch of dogs on stage and kicking them.\u00a0 I was co chair of an event to raise awareness of people in abusive relationships, and we did not raise the awareness by punching people or degrading them.<\/p>\n The creators of this video are also quoted as saying “Tinder is bad.”<\/p>\n This was not a “social experiment” at least in the way that we have come to expect them.\u00a0 Yes expectations are not definitions.\u00a0 If this was a social experiment it would have played out like this:<\/p>\n Except that this still wouldn’t be a great video because you have still publicly humiliated human beings, even if they are<\/em> playas. Or, they could have used the same format, and then segregated the men based on the preferences of various women.\u00a0 But all this would demonstrate what I explain in The Status Game II<\/a><\/em>\u00a0“Overall Status vs. Status on Gages” and “Delving deeper into the dashboard.” And it would have the counterproductive effect of not only humiliating those that aren’t “good enough” but the preferences of the women.\u00a0 And as I say about your preferences “Don’t beat yourself up.”\u00a0 It’s one thing to have preferences, it’s another thing to humiliate people publicly because they don’t live up to them.\u00a0 This just creates anger, sadness and resentment.<\/p>\n A grab for views? Though, respectable in my little world, 87k of views is not a viral video.\u00a0 Of course if I ever get that many views perhaps I will say I went viral?\u00a0 Perhaps not, as i consider millions of views (or at least hundreds of thousands) to be viral.\u00a0 They picked an easy target and known pain points to attract men and create a ‘hilarious’ spectacle of watch-the-monkeys-do-whatever-we-tell-them-to, because men are dumb.\u00a0 Because men only want one thing and will do anything to get it.\u00a0 Perhaps the creators of the video are nice people, perhaps they just like to pick a subject with a lot of pain and make a video about it.\u00a0 I dunno. I give the cretors the benefit of the doubt that they are good, nice people.\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Was this specific to Tinder?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 This would have worked on any dating site, even my site<\/a> could have been used for this (as long as all the connections were incoming<\/em> as I limit the outgoing connections to prevent this sort of thing to begin with.\u00a0 Smart.).\u00a0 Is Tinder bad?\u00a0 In Five Secrets Dating Sites Don’t Want You to Know I explain that they are are structured to keep you engaged and are not set up to help you find someone as their first priority.\u00a0 So does that make them bad?\u00a0 Well, no, but it does make them a business in business to make money and profit.\u00a0 And you should be aware of that. Are sites weighted towards women?\u00a0 Of course they are.\u00a0 Tinder allows men to “only swipe right on 100 people a day” but there is no such rule for women.\u00a0 Imagine that – “only” being allowed to say that you found 100 women that you really want to date in one day.\u00a0 <\/em>Oh the horror.\u00a0 So why the silly rule?\u00a0 Because that’s what men end up doing – swipe swipe swipe swipe.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because then they just removed a layer between themselves and a potential date.\u00a0 If they like everyone<\/em> then now it’s up to the women to choose.\u00a0 Efficient?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Smart?\u00a0 No – it gives all the power to the women, and messes up the entire status structure (as I mention in both “Dear Men” and “Dear Women” in The Status Game II<\/em>.\u00a0 They don’t really like everyone<\/em> but they have<\/em> to, to get to the women they do like.<\/p>\n Or so the reasoning goes.<\/p>\nWhat this was not<\/h2>\n
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So what was this?<\/h2>\n
“This shows Tinder is bad”<\/h2>\n
The lesson<\/h2>\n