Abstract
The coronavirus disease-19 pandemic introduced a crisis of safety and relevance for dating apps, as their affordances for facilitating in-person encounters posed the risk of viral transmission. This article examines how eight apps primarily catering to heterosexual markets responded to the pandemic through changes to socio-technical arrangements, new user prescriptions, and the curation of corporate data and success stories. By analyzing corporate social media and promotional materials alongside in-app developments, we find that these companies reimagined app affordances to promote “virtual dating,” a set of practices and symbolic meanings that prioritize visual, synchronous digital interaction as the most responsible, reliable, and successful dating approach to the pandemic. Virtual dating centers apps as databases of potential partners while prescribing modes of use aimed toward affective relief, displays of authenticity, and romantic courtship. This reimagining counters moral panics about digitally mediated relationships by resorting to heteronormative dating scripts while overlooking alternative app uses.
Keywords
It’s officially the year of the virtual date.—Bumble (blog post, 30 May 2020)
In spring 2020, much of life turned virtual for people across the globe. A worldwide outbreak of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its associated illness coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) elicited responses from governments and health officials, ushering in physical distancing guidelines that advised against in-person contact with those outside of one’s home. As workplaces, schools, and entertainment venues closed, home became a site of work and leisure. Individuals increasingly turned to digital technologies to remain in contact, with videoconferencing platforms like Zoom seeing shares rapidly increase as their use moved from the boardroom to the living room (Koeze and Popper, 2020). Commentary on broadcast and social media eventually identified dating as a high-risk activity for viral transmission and implicated dating apps as intensifying this risk. Opinion pieces included calls for app companies to recognize their responsibility toward protecting users from illness and death (Blue, 2020), while government officials warned against app use, with a Canadian health minister drawing attention for his comment, “If you use Tinder or Grindr and you swipe right, you might get more than you bargained for” (Belmonte, 2020). Social media users jokingly circulated screenshots of a spoof dating profile for “Coronavirus” as a potential match that will “take your breath away and leave you in bed for days” (@cluelesslaura, 2020). These associations raised concerns over the safety and appropriateness of using dating apps during a pandemic.
Dating through digital means has become common over the past decade, with 30% of Americans having used a dating website or app (Anderson et al., 2020). Dating apps dominate the matchmaking industry, with their success stemming from mobile geolocative features that enable meeting physically proximate partners. While apps for men seeking men saw early uptake, discourses of romance and reassurances of user safety have allowed apps like Tinder to enter the mainstream heterosexual dating market (Duguay, 2018; Myles, 2020). However, with COVID-19 safety measures recommending against in-person contact, dating apps faced a crisis of affordances during the pandemic, as their default features and uses now carried the risk of infection.
In this article, we examine how eight apps that primarily cater to heterosexual markets have reimagined their affordances in support of virtual dating to respond to a dual crisis: the pandemic and the threat of being rendered useless. Through our analysis of app features, functionalities, interfaces as well as corporate and promotional materials, we have identified changes in dating apps’ material arrangements (within apps and their spatiotemporal contexts of use) and in prescriptions to users, which together aim to reimagine the purpose, conventions and promised outcomes of virtual dating. We find that, according to these dating app companies, virtual dating constitutes a set of practices and symbolic meanings that prioritize visual and synchronous digital interactions as the most responsible, reliable, and successful approach to dating during the pandemic. Video calling and associated features were enlisted in virtual dating to establish the authenticity and, by extension, safety of potential suitors, while a prolonged lack of physical contact was purported to generate deeper emotional and romantic bonds. Through corporate messaging, virtual dating advice, and curated user success stories, dating app companies perpetuated the belief that relational success entails long-term monogamous commitment. Our results highlight the technodiscursive strategies through which corporate actors reimagine technological affordances in times of crisis, resorting to traditional, heteronormative discourses to counter skepticism regarding the legitimacy of online relationship formation, distance app technologies from the stigma of casual sex and instill in users a sense of purpose, safety, and continuity that promises a future post-crisis.
Risk and authenticity in online and mobile dating
“Virtual” is a term often associated with 1990s’ conceptions of cyberspace. Used as shorthand for differentiating interactions online from those that occur “in real life” (IRL), the term often instantiates a boundary between online and offline sociality. This perception of duality endures despite a legacy of digital media research that identifies how real-life social dynamics permeate online spaces (Baym, 2015). With respect to partner-seeking, studies of 1990s’ virtual chat rooms and bulletin board systems (BBS) found that individuals employ textual communication to integrate a sense of spatiality and embodiment as well as to discern characteristics of others, such as physique and ethnicity (Campbell, 2004; Correll, 1995). Even so, moral panics were historically prevalent with the emergence of these technologies and have continued through subsequent technological developments, casting doubt upon the authenticity and trustworthiness of digitally facilitated connections (Baym, 2015).
As online dating gained momentum in the 2000s, companies contended with perceptions of risk and danger toward digitally mediated partner-seeking. Dating websites were often viewed as an outlet for those with “deviant” sexual behaviors or as a last resort for those who could not find partners through offline social networks (Anderson, 2005). Text-laden dating profiles and message exchanges raised concerns about the editability of self-presentations and difficulty discerning authenticity among reduced communication cues (Toma et al., 2008). Although many dating websites enabled individuals to communicate without being restricted by geographic proximity, users were less likely to misrepresent themselves to potential partners who they envisioned meeting in person (Ellison et al., 2011: 56). Therefore, the probability of meeting in-person constrained user deception.
Mobile dating apps bolster this constraint through reliance on proximity-based dating and features that facilitate in-person encounters (Blackwell et al., 2015; Licoppe et al., 2016). Several apps have also included features for social verification, importing data, and friend networks from other platforms to ensure a coherent self-presentation across these contexts (Duguay, 2017). Others have adopted guidelines compelling users to display their legal name and an accurate representation of their face, following Facebook’s impetus toward “authentic” self-presentation, which has spread across the broader social media ecology (Lingel and Golub, 2015). However, these forms of user verification have not dissuaded media commentary that frames dating apps as safety and health risks, blaming them for crimes and sexually transmitted infections, among other “social problems” (Albury et al., 2020). While these claims overlook user agency and strategies for negotiating such risks (Albury et al., 2019), connections made with partners through digital means—through the virtual—continue to be viewed as less legitimate than those formed in-person.
Safety in romance
Dating apps’ association with facilitating casual sex heightens perceptions that they carry risk and threaten relationship-building. Dating apps targeting heterosexual markets build on the legacy of apps for men seeking men, which introduced features and functionalities for streamlining interactions and rapidly arranging sexual encounters (Licoppe et al., 2016). Furthermore, the popular perception of Grindr and Tinder as “hook-up apps” provides users with a subtext that frames encounters as casual and with “no strings attached” (Race, 2015). Users experience swipe-based functionality, popularized by Tinder but now standard in several heterosexual-targeted apps, as a “swipe logic” (David and Cambre, 2016) that encourages rapid, binary, and visually focused decision-making conducive to arranging casual encounters. While individuals report using dating apps for a variety of purposes, including entertainment, friendship, relationships, and sex (Ranzini and Lutz, 2016), media discourses have fixated on their facilitation of casual sex (Albury, 2018).
Casual sex continues to carry stigma associated with moral corruption and the subversion of heteronormative ideals. Albury (2018) draws on Rubin’s (1993) “charmed circle” to illustrate how casual sex has long been viewed as outside of the boundaries of “good” heterosexuality, with this stigma transferring to Tinder and other apps, which are blamed for annihilating romantic courtship. Rubin (1993) also places sex “with manufactured objects” in the circle’s outer limits, demarcating its unacceptability. While this category mainly conjures images of sex toys or props, “manufactured objects” may be expanded to include technologies that mediate sex. From hotlines to video dating, mediated forms of partner-seeking have long been viewed as less legitimate than well-entrenched scripts of heterosexual courtship that involve in-person exchanges. Furthermore, gendered double standards associated with casual sex, which expect women to engage in sexual activity but stigmatize them for it, continue to play out in rampant misogynistic behavior enacted through dating apps (Lee, 2019).
Rather than attempting to destigmatize casual sex, many app companies have strived to disrupt the perception that their technologies are for hooking up. Dating apps that target the heterosexual market cater to heteronormative scripts that idealize romance and long-term relationships, generally as a means toward marriage (van Hoof, 2020). They feature success stories of couples who met on the app and were subsequently married, such as Tinder’s #swipedright campaign, which plays on the hashtag’s double meaning of “swiping right” to select one’s perfect match and making the “right” decision to pursue long-term romance (Duguay, 2018). For dating app companies, the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting physical distancing measures represented an opportunity to further dissociate their apps from casual sex, though it required them to first address the brewing controversy over their safety and relevance.
A crisis of affordances
Science and technology studies (STS) scholars have long observed that the meanings and uses of technologies are often contested and in flux (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1985). While the dominant purpose and design of a new technology are negotiated between users and developers, these eventually reach stability as the technology becomes domesticated (Pinch and Bijker, 1984). Dating apps are now a common tool in the lives of young people, adding another option for proximate partner-seeking (Newett et al., 2017). These apps’ design, GPS and mobile functionality combine with user practices to enact affordances conducive to meeting in-person with matches initiated in-app. However, technological stabilization is rocked by controversies, which draw into question established meanings and relationships among actors (Venturini, 2009). The COVID-19 pandemic instantiated a controversy over dating apps’ apparent use for facilitating face-to-face interactions that heighten the risk of viral transmission. This controversy spawned a crisis of affordances, as app companies observed multiple actors—journalists, government officials, social media commentators and dating app-users themselves—ascribing risk and irrelevance to dating apps within the rapidly shifting range of socially and physically acceptable conduct.
We draw on theories of affordances to examine dating app companies’ multi-faceted responses to the dual crisis of a worldwide pandemic and the wavering legitimacy of dating app use during the pandemic. Such theories allow for identifying how material conditions, designer intentions, and user responses feature in attempts to re-stabilize technology use and associated meanings. Originally articulated by Gibson (1979), affordance theory examines the relationality between an organism and its environment. Multiple scholars have tailored affordance theory toward understanding how social media interfaces shape relations among technologies and users (Bucher and Helmond, 2017). Nagy and Neff (2015) propose that affordances are often held in the imaginations of users and designers in ways that are not always fully conscious but are materialized in socio-technical systems. According to them, imagined affordances emerge “between users’ perceptions, attitudes, and expectations; between the materiality and functionality of technologies; and between the intentions and perceptions of designers’’ (Nagy and Neff, 2015: 5). Dividing the notion of affordance into these subsets allows us to examine material changes in relation to dating apps, their framing as a reflection of design intentions and the strategic display of user attitudes toward these changes. All three factors—materiality, designer intentions, and curated user responses that companies choose to showcase—reflect the efforts of dating app companies to shift the imagined affordances associated with their technologies toward virtual dating.
Our focus on apps presents a view of affordances these companies imagined as appropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic, while not yet examining users’ imagined affordances in this context. Despite this, our attention to apps reveals their modes of prescription, uncovering how they guide users toward preferred behavior (Akrich and Latour, 1992). This involves steering users away from certain activities while favoring alternatives by making them not only possible but also prominent. Through the material and symbolic reshaping of dating app affordances, apps examined in this article prescribed virtual dating to ensure one’s safety and instantiate romantic possibility during the pandemic.
Investigating dating apps’ pandemic responses
First identified in December 2019 as a pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei in China (Hui and et al, 2020), the novel coronavirus quickly spread across the world causing countries to declare national emergencies (Secon et al., 2020). National safety measures included shutting borders to travelers, closing non-essential businesses and services, and issuing “shelter-in-place” orders advising citizens to stay at home. Public health officials asserted that maintaining distance from others was essential for containing the virus’ spread. Their guidelines fell under the umbrella of “social distancing,” which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) specifies as “keeping space between yourself and other people outside of your home” (CDC, 2020). Such guidelines complicated dating and hooking up, as activities often initiated and carried out in close proximity with people previously unknown.
During the early application of these measures from March to June 2020, we examined dating app companies’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given our interest in the apps’ shifting affordances, we applied the walkthrough method (Light et al., 2018), which combines perspectives from STS and cultural studies to examine “how technologies shape culture while simultaneously being a product of it” (p. 7). The walkthrough method involves two phases. The first phase aims to establish an app’s “environment of expected use,” which involves a critical examination of its vision, business model and governance policies. As such, we collected and analyzed 2116 posts from social media accounts, 97 blog posts, and 10 press releases from 16 popular dating and hook-up apps, encapsulating their public-facing messaging in relation to “expected use” following the initial spread of COVID-19. Second, the walkthrough method calls for a “technical walkthrough” stepping through apps’ technological infrastructure. We downloaded each app and checked for changes daily, collecting 182 screenshots of pandemic-related in-app content (including company messages and software changes; user-generated content was not collected). Data collection was discontinued in June 2020 as app companies shifted their messaging from pandemic-related content to expressions of solidarity with racial justice movements following George Floyd’s murder. Thus, our data collection reflects the messaging and in-app modifications to several popular dating apps within these three months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It represents a truncated application of the walkthrough method, concentrating on app materials that relate to pandemic responses during this specific timeframe. It was also limited to the locally available version of each app and our capacity to examine a limited number of apps.
Following a broad thematic analysis across the dataset (for an overview, see Myles et al., 2021), we identified similar trends among eight apps primarily marketed to heterosexual publics: Bumble, Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB), Happn, Hinge, Match, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish (POF), and Tinder. Returning specifically to the materials collected for these apps and applying “imagined affordances” as a sensitizing concept (Silverman and Marvasti, 2008), each author qualitatively analyzed the materials for indications of designer intentions, new material arrangements and curated displays of user uptake—all of which indicated new prescribed behaviors for dating app users. Then, the authors engaged in collaborative analysis, fortifying emergent analytical themes through discussion and the iterative process of analytical writing (Pelias, 2011). Through this process, it became apparent that these eight popular apps shaped “virtual dating” as a set of prescribed user practices, concretized through socio-material arrangements, to reimagine sustained engagement with dating apps as being safe and meaningful during the pandemic despite prohibitions on meeting potential partners in person.
The new normal: virtual dating
When the pandemic first hit, dating app companies encouraged users to continue going about daily life, including dating. For example, CMB perpetuated a sense of optimism: “As social distancing and quarantine life becomes ‘the new normal,’ it’s easy to feel like much of life has been ‘cancelled.’ But the good stuff in life? You can’t cancel that” (blog post, 26 March 2020). This declaration echoed other app companies, including Bumble, Match, POF and Tinder, in describing the current situation as the “new normal.” Tinder surmised: “For some people, social distancing hasn’t put a stop to dating—it’s just turned it virtual” (blog post, 15 April 2020). The term “virtual” was recurrent across the materials we analyzed, and virtual dating emerged as an ongoing theme supported by new app features and a proliferation of user prescriptions.
According to these companies, virtual dating constitutes a new combination of understandings, technological features, and practices that reconfigure dating app affordances in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a reimagination that reorients users from the apps’ facilitation of in-person encounters toward non-physical interactions while simultaneously attempting to sustain user engagement. Notably, virtual dating is different from “online dating”—a term that rarely appeared in our collected materials—with “virtual” carving out a distinction from older text-based web services. Virtual conjures present technological realities and aspirations of immersive, embodied, real-time and mobile experiences. Although older technologies are not absent from virtual dating’s associated practices (with, for example, suggestions to intersperse video chats with telephone calls), an emphasis on visual, synchronous technologies requiring contemporary devices and high-speed Internet set this mediated approach to dating apart from that which could be perceived as obsolete.
At a base level, dating apps promoted virtual dating as a responsible alternative to in-person dating, disassociating app use from viral contamination. However, virtual dating was quickly associated with the verification of user authenticity and establishment of romantic bonds, dissuading users from rapid physical contact and precluding casual sex in favor of monogamous, long-term relationships. The following sections highlight how these dating app companies imagined virtual dating as the preferred practice for pandemic times. By providing (a) material scaffolding in the form of new features, functions, and spatiotemporal configurations, (b) user prescriptions and interdictions through FAQs, listicles, and advice columns, and (c) evidence of uptake and success stories promising romance if such norms are followed, these app companies presented a new set of imagined affordances they viewed as conducive to intimate socialization during the pandemic.
Shifting material arrangements
Changes to dating app functionality tended toward the integration of synchronous audio and video communication into dating practices. Apps that lacked features to support exchanges beyond text-based messages advised individuals to use their technology alongside other services. Happn, Hinge, OkCupid, and Tinder made social media posts suggesting the use of videoconferencing platforms, such as FaceTime, Google Hangouts, and Zoom. On Instagram, OkCupid mused, “Who knew Zoom would be the hottest new happy hour spot?” (25 March 2020). CMB facilitated a weekly series called “Coffee Talk” over Zoom to give “singles the chance to get their socialization on from the comfort of their own home—cozy slippers and glass of wine optional” (blog post, 2 April 2020). Through their suggestions and facilitation of events held through videoconferencing platforms, these apps aimed to render seamless the transition from matching in-app to meeting over video.
In combination with other modes of communication, these apps retained their focal role as databases and filtering mechanisms for potential matches. With a large userbase of post-secondary students, Tinder first unlocked its paid Passport feature to Tinder U subscribers—those with a
Several dating app companies, such as Bumble, Match, and POF, introduced in-app voice and video features to keep users on their platforms rather than encouraging modality weaving. POF’s “Live!” allowed livestreaming, enabling others to drop into one’s stream to “meet” them spontaneously. Extending this multi-user videoconferencing functionality, POF also launched a live speed dating game, called “NextDate,” in which people could match through their livestreams and be placed in a one-on-one chat. Bumble and Match opted only for one-on-one functionalities, with Match indicating that its feature “Vibe Check,” which allowed for real-time video calling, would remain into the future: “While this feature is great for staying connected while social distancing, there are other benefits to initiating a Vibe Check” (blog post, 21 April 2020), like preventing users from investing money, time, and energy in an unproductive date. These companies framed their new features as long-term enhancements to digitally mediated dating.
Extending beyond material rearrangements in and among apps, these new technological features and couplings reconfigured spatiotemporal aspects of dating. One’s home, rather than public spaces, became implicated in initial face-to-face contact—and dating app companies demonstrated awareness of this shift. Hinge joked that users still had numerous places to go on (virtual) dates, including “The Living Room Café,” “Kitchen Bistro,” and “The Bedroom Pub” (Instagram post, 10 April 2020). Similarly, Match shared a satirical depiction of a home floorplan, labeling the bedroom “Glampground” and the bathroom “Spa” (Instagram post, 29 April 2020). Audio and video calling features also enhanced the immediacy of communication, allowing potential impositions on one’s time and space previously mitigated by asynchronous in-app messaging. Certain dating app companies recognized the need for users to provide consent for what could be perceived as a more intrusive form of communication through mechanisms beyond answering or declining a call. Bumble introduced a “Virtual Date Badge” for users to signal their willingness to video chat on their profile. Hinge similarly implemented a “Date from Home” feature that allowed users to privately indicate their video calling preference and only notified them when both parties signaled mutual interest. While these technological mechanisms aimed to shape user behaviors, dating app companies sought to further stabilize the meaning of virtual dating and establish norms surrounding its practice.
Meaning-making for virtual dating
Several dating app companies’ first response to the pandemic was to deploy in-app messages to all users. They not only acknowledged the situation and directed users to health resources but also established a course of action for individuals to continue using dating apps. Tinder (in-app message, 26 March 2020) explained: We hope to be a place for connection during this challenging time, but it’s important to stress that now is not the time to meet IRL with your match. Please keep things here 
for now and be sure to stay informed.
OkCupid and POF showed support for staying at home by updating their logos, the former adding a rooftop over its letters “okc” and the latter placing its fish mascot inside a bowl. Bumble stated, “We encourage you to please take your dates virtual” (in-app message, 20 March 2020), thereby introducing the language of “virtual” dating from the onset and linking this term to the app’s new features for video chat and voice calling. These prominent messages articulated the need for user behaviors to change immediately and suggested that digital communication was not only a sufficient alternative for meeting suitors, but also the responsible course of action. App companies followed these initial interventions with arguments that users should turn to virtual dating for affective relief during crisis, identity verification and establishing romantic relationships, prescribing behaviors to set new norms for this kind of use.
Virtual dating for affective relief
Dating app companies acknowledged that users were dealing with a range of emotions and affects stemming from the pandemic. “If you’re anything like me,” Kaelyn Lark wrote for Tinder’s blog, “you’re probably feeling anxious, confused, and frustrated about what the future holds, especially as it pertains to your personal life” (blog post, 23 March 2020). Many individuals experienced high anxiety during the pandemic and felt uncertainty toward public health guidelines, especially given the broad circulation of misinformation (Freiling et al., 2021). Dating app companies delivered empathetic messages in relation to this anxiety and the presumed loneliness precipitated by social distancing guidelines. POF explained, “As the world weathers the storm that is COVID-19, people around the globe are being urged to do something we’re used to avoiding during difficult times: stay away from one another” (blog post, 20 March 2020). Suggestions for self-care were common, with apps recommending consumerist practices closely linked with neoliberal capitalist responses to the pandemic (Branicki, 2020). Bumble suggested “adorning your environment with plenty of candles, flowers, and soft textures” (blog post, 18 April 2020). Such messages conveyed an effort to relate to users and provide immediate solutions for affective relief.
Communication technologies in general, and dating apps specifically, were at the forefront of solutions to pandemic-related loneliness and isolation. CMB posted on Instagram, “Scary things are less scary together” (17 March 2020) and continued this theme in a blog post: This uncertain and sometimes scary new world doesn’t haven’t [sic] to mean the end of online dating. Humans are usually pretty good at coming together in times of need. So even though we might all have to spend some time physically apart, we’ve been inspired by the creative ways people continue to virtually connect. (19 March 2020)
Similarly, Bumble asserted that users should “Destroy the idea that you have to be lonely right now . . . [and] Embrace connection” (Instagram post, 15 April 2020), presenting a list of “4 in-app tools that do just that.” Tinder insisted that users’ existing contacts were insufficient to address pandemic loneliness and isolation: “Not to be dramatic, but we need social interaction to survive and thrive. Sure, you’ve got some combination of friends, family, and your pets to talk to, but this is a great time to make new connections as well” (blog post, 23 March 2020). These discourses perpetuated the notion that quitting dating apps during the pandemic was riskier than continuing their use. Spurring users to continue dating for their emotional and social wellbeing, dating apps encouraged virtual dating as a safe and trustworthy approach.
Virtual dating for establishing authenticity
Without the possibility of meeting face to face, app companies presented virtual dating as an alternative means of establishing the authenticity of potential suitors. In the context of dating, the notion of authenticity—stemming from the cultural expectations set by social media platforms like Facebook and by traditional matchmakers before them—is associated with verifying an individual’s identity and ensuring their consistent presentation of a unified self, free of deception (Duguay, 2017; Toma et al., 2008). Tinder emphasized the importance of being truthful in a blog post titled, “17 Commandments of Online Dating,” and set out rules like, “Thou shalt not lie about height in your bio,” “Thou shall keep your pics (at least relatively) current” and “Thou shall be thyself” (9 April 2020). POF underscored the importance of authenticity with the bolded invocation to “Be real!” as its top tip for users accessing the new Live! feature (blog post, 27 March 2020). Such instructions emphasize a user’s responsibility to remain truthful even if personal information and consistent self-presentation are more difficult to verify online.
Dating app companies framed visual and real-time means of communication as holding users accountable to non-deceptive and reliable exchanges. A Tinder blog post featured a psychologist explaining, “Taking the time to sit down, call someone, and be fully present is very different from texting” (14 April 2020). The expert discouraged texting in favor of video calls and phone dates to cultivate “the experience of consistent interaction” as a means of establishing who someone is and building a relationship. This advice reflected dating app companies’ broader emphasis on video as the essential next step after matching, summarized by Tinder’s Instagram post that simply read: “Let’s COVID-eo chat” (6 April 2020). This insistence on video interaction for establishing connection ignored individuals’ use of text messaging and other text-based communication forms that remained important for developing a sense of connectedness during the pandemic (Nguyen et al., 2021). It also overlooked the meaningful relationships individuals once developed through text-based digital services, from BBS to chat rooms and dating websites.
Dating app companies touted audio and visual communication as essential for protecting users’ safety, linking the notion of authenticity to safety as other platforms have done (Lingel and Golub, 2015). In a blog post explaining video and voice calling features, Bumble stated, “We hope this’ll help you confidently connect with matches—and feel safe before deciding whether you’re happy to share your personal information” (5 April 2020). While these features allow for multiple modes of communication within the app without exchanging phone numbers or coordinates for other platforms, video can also reveal a great deal of personal information conveyed by one’s physical qualities and surroundings. Video calling, as a key activity of virtual dating, relies on the exchange of this difficult-to-fake information and self-presentation cues that are (often involuntarily) given off (Miller, 1995) to establish a sense of authenticity online among users.
Match’s Vibe Check seemingly acknowledges this functionality in its name, allowing users to
Drawing on the affordances of video calls for synchronous and visually immersive interactions, dating app companies prescribed replicating unmediated dating experiences. Virtual dating tips often instructed users to act as they would on an in-person date. Tinder noted, “Whether it’s a meal or a walk, an IRL date usually includes some sort of activity. It can be helpful to carry this over to virtual dates” (blog post, 29 March 2020). Bumble, CMB and Hinge suggested date activities that adjusted unmediated scenarios for digital communication, such as replacing restaurant dining with ordering takeout for each other and eating over a video call. Hinge reassured users that a virtual date “mimics a typical date activity and even if you’re doing it separately you’re doing it at the same time” (Instagram post, 21 April 2020). Similarly, POF told users, “There’s absolutely no reason that a virtual date can’t be just as fun as a physical date. Schedule this time just like you would a regular date and remember to stay present and attentive” (blog post, 9 April 2020). By imploring users to treat virtual dates as “real” or “regular” dates that are facilitated through technology, these companies attempted to dislodge associations of the virtual with fluid, unstable and potentially deceptive encounters, making way for users to feel comfortable establishing romantic connections.
Virtual dating for romantic courtship
A common theme observed in our dataset relates to the assumption among dating app companies that physical distance can generate meaningful and romantic relationships, as illustrated by this quote from Match’s expert blog (23 March 2020):
Falling in love “blindly in a pod” references the Netflix reality show Love Is Blind (2020–), which premiered in February 2020 and gained popularity during early stages of social distancing. The show portrayed a dating competition in which participants interacted across individual pods, allowing them to hear but not see each other, on the premise that love flourishes without physical distractions. In a blog post entitled, “Let’s Talk About Not Hooking Up While We Battle COVID-19” (22 April 2020), Tinder featured Jessica, a user who referenced the show as akin to dating during quarantine: Unless you’re just looking for entertainment, I think quarantine can actually be a great opportunity to get to know someone on a deeper level before bringing anything physical into it. We can pretend like we’re in the pods on “Love Is Blind.”
These references associate virtual dating with popular cultural tropes to embed it in romantic courtship scripts. App companies often framed virtual dating as an opportunity for romance, asserting that “Love is not cancelled” (OkCupid, Instagram post, 30 March 2020), due in part to the altered temporality of distanced dating. CMB (blog post, 19 March 2020) told users: Not only are we forced to reevaluate how we approach dating, but also removing the ability to meet in person shortly after matching is encouraging us to slow down. And really, this slow dating approach could be a faster way to get that genuine connection we’re searching for: Daters have more time to simply get to know each other.
Other apps echoed that taking things slow was possible because social distancing measures and the shut-down of workplaces, businesses and entertainment venues provided individuals with more time to invest in relationships. This messaging reflects an imagined user who has easily adjusted to pandemic measures without grave disruption to social and economic life. It overlooks essential workers, who continued or increased their in-person labor, and those who became caregivers or had their caregiving roles intensified due to the crisis.
Virtual dating promised relationships built on a foundation of non-physical, emotional exchanges, which were repeatedly described as “real.” Implied across dating app materials was the assumption that sexual activity presented a barrier to forming meaningful relationships, defined as long-term, monogamous couplings—those at the center of Rubin’s (1993) charmed circle. However, the pandemic removed this barrier by precluding or delaying sexual activity, as dating app companies imagined their new features being used for long conversations or shared dinners at a distance but not mediated sexual acts.
In efforts to guide users toward romantic outcomes facilitated by virtual dating, these companies stepped in to prescribe app-related norms and conduct for romantic courtship. CMB empathized: “We get it, asking someone out on a date isn’t always easy. And asking someone out on a virtual date—where do you even begin? Don’t worry, we’ve got your back” (Instagram post, 19 March 2020). Similarly, Match posted: “#DatingWhileDistancing isn’t our norm, but our experts are here to help you navigate it” (Instagram post, 25 March 2020). #DatingWhileDistancing served as a promotional hashtag for the company’s advice website, established in response to the pandemic alongside a hotline for personalized virtual dating help.
Like Match’s “certified dating experts,” other apps advertised consulting with “relationship experts” (Bumble, blog post, 19 May 2020), “cyber dating experts” (Tinder, blog post, 14 April 2020), or “quarantine dating experts” (Hinge, Instagram post, 24 March 2020), who generated an array of prescriptions and interdictions of virtual dating. These included proper etiquette, such as Tinder’s “10 Dos and Don’ts of FaceTiming with your Tinder Match” (blog post, 29 March 2020) which demanded that users “curate their space,” “steer clear of too much doom-and-gloom talk,” and “get dressed.” Match expanded on this requirement, instructing users to “Dress accordingly: Get ready just like you would for an actual date. Ladies, get out of the yoga clothes and put your berry lip on. Guys, grab a comb and a clean shirt” (blog post, 27 March 2020). Replicating gender scripts that put greater pressure on women’s bodily comportment than men’s (Bartky, 2003), dating apps reinstated these expectations for virtual dates.
Overall, virtual dating was portrayed as a way to deal with the pandemic and move toward an in-person future with a romantic partner. After suggesting Zoom date ideas, Tinder reasoned: “We won’t tell you these things are the same as sitting within arm’s distance of one another, but they can help build chemistry and keep a connection until you are able to meet IRL” (blog post, 23 March 2020). Similarly, Match’s “ultimate” tip for video dating had nothing to do with the medium: “Plan for the future: You’re not going to be stuck at home forever” (blog post, 27 March 2020). In a blog post about fostering new relationships despite the pandemic, POF posed the rhetorical question, “There’s a reason they say love conquers all, right?” (9 April 2020). These hopeful assurances reinforced heteronormative visions of the future, which assume that heterosexual relationships continue to intensify as they move progressively along a socially sanctioned path toward marriage, domestication and family rearing (Ahmed, 2006). Dating app companies’ focus on their users’ relational future reveals an investment in potential success stories, wherein value is afforded to “marital, reproductive heterosexuals” who are “alone at the top of the erotic pyramid” (Rubin, 1993: 279). Traditional discourses of domesticity and the continuation of heterosexual family lineages point to safety and stability, orienting those who are interpellated by them toward the future through a reliance on entrenched ways of the past (Ahmed, 2006). Thus, dating app companies fell back on long-standing hegemonic discourses to compel continued user activity and perpetuate the promise of a future.
Curating user responses
Soon after unveiling new features and deploying messaging about virtual dating practices, several companies touted their widespread uptake. POF announced, “Before social isolation, only 26% of singles had video chatted with a prospective date, now 60% of singles are more likely to use video chat with a potential date” (blog post, 7 May 2020). Match Group Inc., which owns Hinge, Match, OkCupid, POF and Tinder, shared a press release (31 March 2020) boasting the popularity of virtual dating, stating: “Existing users, particularly under age 30, are increasingly turning to our products to cope and connect.” The press release incorporated data to show how Tinder conversations “are up anywhere from 10–30% since the outbreaks started in many countries” and “Hinge has seen a 30% increase in messages in March compared to January and February” (Match, press release, 31 March 2020). While such statistics speak more generally to individuals’ increased use of digital technologies during the pandemic (Nguyen et al., 2021), they can serve to convince users and investors that dating apps remain relevant despite the forfeiture of in-person meetings.
While statistics were used to demonstrate uptake, dating app companies resorted to more granular evidence to show that virtual dating led to romantic connections and lasting relationships. Through several Instagram Stories, Hinge inquired, “Have you gone on a virtual date yet? If yes, share your story with us or share why someone should give it a try” (21 April 2020, 8 May 2020, 28 May 2020). Hinge showcased select user responses, including: “We talked for 5 hours, and have talked every night since. He’s now my boyfriend!” (21 April 2020) and “W/o [without] virtual dating, I wouldn’t have met the love of my life/bf [boyfriend]. Thanks hinge” (29 May 2020). Social media enabled these companies to solicit and amplify such success stories. CMB blogged about model users who embodied this narrative by becoming engaged or married during the pandemic while OkCupid mailed congratulatory gifts to users who met on their app and married, posting photos of the happy couples with their branded swag.
Corporately curated evidence to support virtual dating’s effectiveness also fortified the notion that delaying physical contact could generate lasting relationships. OkCupid emphasized, “Eighty-five percent of the 70,000 daters on OkCupid who answered say it’s important to develop an emotional connection before a physical one, so the switch to virtual dates has allowed these emotional connections to thrive” (blog post, 4 April 2020). Despite the widespread use of dating apps before the pandemic for a range of purposes, these companies reoriented users toward building emotional ties as the most appropriate use during the pandemic. They showcased model users who echoed this goal, with Hinge re-posting user comments about the capabilities of virtual dating in its Instagram Stories: “You’re able to build a deeper connection” (9 May 2020) and “It allows you have your attention solely on them [your match], which makes it more meaningful” (9 May 2020). While users may have found other purposes for video dating features, such as remote sexual activity or non-monogamous dating, these outcomes were notably absent from corporate statistics and curated success stories.
Conclusion
This article has examined how dating app companies reimagined their app affordances to depict the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for finding love through the promotion of “virtual dating,” an emerging set of practices aimed at facilitating and legitimizing online romantic encounters. Virtual dating is the corporate response to a dual crisis in user safety and app affordances, which was crafted by shifting socio-technical arrangements, producing new user prescriptions, and curating success stories. This strategy sought to turn the limitations that the pandemic imposed on intimate socialization into potential benefits, that is, by depicting features meant for online, synchronous, and audiovisual communication as beneficial tools for providing affective relief, establishing others’ authenticity, and precluding physical contact while fostering romantic bonds.
This reimagination of dating apps’ affordances for virtual dating serves to distance their associated features and practices from residual hesitations toward earlier forms of digitally mediated dating. Through assertions that virtual dating is effective for establishing authenticity and romantic bonds, these companies aim to subvert persistent moral panics about the danger and illegitimacy of relationships formed through digital technologies. Visual, synchronous mediated interaction is rendered integral to establishing user safety, becoming a recommended first step even when meeting in person is perceived as feasible. Consequently, dating app companies further entrench their technologies in users’ lives as essential databases of suitors and, in most cases, as platforms that facilitate intimacy and engagement through in-app video features. This allows app companies to maintain high user engagement, which provides greater opportunities for advertising and user data commodification. Thus, virtual dating increases these companies’ profitability by dissuading “stranger danger” online dating narratives and by compelling increased use through integrated design.
However, virtual dating ignores user-developed tactics for communication and interaction, such as modality weaving, and puts pressure on users to prescribe to normative and formulated dating scripts. It also dismisses the responsibility of corporate actors in tending to their users’ wellbeing by failing to recognize how features like video calling can facilitate invasions of privacy, harassment and discrimination, especially among women, queer folks and people of color who are disproportionately left to deal with the strenuous affective labor of moderation and self-protection.
Furthermore, our analysis highlights how dating app companies have resorted to traditional, hegemonic tropes of monogamous heterosexuality to reconfigure and re-stabilize their apps’ technological affordances early in the pandemic. Their efforts not only illustrate how these apps have used the pandemic as an opportunity to distance themselves from their “hook-up” reputation, they also showcase how powerful corporate or political actors often resort to hegemonic discourses in times of uncertainty and social change (Mansbridge and Shames, 2008). By perpetuating the fantasy that the pandemic is “a time for love” (Match, blog post, 11 May 2020), dating app companies restore a semblance of normalcy through the continuation of customary institutions, like marriage and family.
Yet, virtual dating, and the heteronormative assumptions on which it relies, will not simply recede as social distancing restrictions ease. Several dating app companies have already asserted that their new virtual dating functionalities are permanent and extol the benefits of in-app “slow dating” beyond the pandemic (Bumble, 2021). This continued focus on slow dating ignores a range of other app uses while fortifying the stigmatization of their use for casual sex, as an activity already associated with risk, danger, and contamination but with these associations strengthened through the crisis. The elevation of romantic relationships, as evidence of highly successful and respectable dating practices, is also likely to intensify gendered double standards concerning heterosexual casual sex, providing the impetus to further stigmatize women seeking sexual encounters through these apps. Since these double standards also render women responsible for protecting themselves from men’s sexually aggressive and violent behavior, the additional labor of
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank those who contributed to discussions of our preliminary findings at the Futures of Feminist and Queer Solidarities conference and the 6th Digital Intimacies symposium.
Authors’ note
All authors have agreed to the submission of this article. The article is not currently being considered for publication by any other print or electronic journal.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Stefanie Duguay’s research is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC ref: 430-2019-00866). Christopher Dietzel receives funding from the SHaG Lab (Dalhousie University) and the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation. David Myles has received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
