These Former Dating App Employees Are Spilling Insider Secrets
Even if you don't like them, we can all agree that dating apps are a pillar of modern dating. They're inescapable, and pretty much every person who has been single has subjected themselves to the chaos that is Tinder or Bumble at one point in their lives.
People have their horror stories about them, but what about the people who work at the apps? In this Reddit thread, (supposedly) former dating app employees decided to spill a few insider secrets and user stats they learned during their time there.
Time To Get Creative With Your Opening Lines
"I used to work at [a dating app], although this was about 4–5 years ago. Globally, about 90% of the users are men, so there is a huge male to female disparity, although it's not that bad on a per country basis (for some countries).
"The most depressing stat though was the histogram of word count in messages. Something like 91% of opening messages were just one word 'hey,' and ~85% of conversations were just one exchange long ('hey' -> no reply ever).
"Looking at human digital mating habits splayed out in data science form was really depressing." —Reddit / trias10
Murderers Use Dating Apps Too
"I worked for a dating app for a few years in a role that was pretty high up where I was privy to almost all of the inner workings of the app. I won't say which one, but I think my experience probably is applicable to other apps as well.
"We had a murder on our platform. The top of the company got interviewed as witnesses. TBH there wasn't really anything we did our could have done about it, but it is crazy to think about." —Reddit / throwaway492130921
Those Profiles Might Be Too Good To Be True
"My old boss was the financial controller of a big dating site. He kept on seeing these big invoices for modeling agencies and initially thought it was because of the big parties they used to host. When he asked about it, it turned out it was just content for the fake profiles they created to lure in users." —Reddit / jimpez86
Women Need To Message More, Apparently
"This was years ago now, but I used to work with a guy who had been an engineer for [a dating website]. He said 99% of the profiles were inactive, and that 80% of the active profiles were men.
"He didn't provide numbers but also said the was a huge disparity between the average number of messages sent to women versus those sent to men. According to him, all told, the site was mostly men reaching out to dead profiles and never getting responses." —Reddit / CastSeven
Your Preferences Might Be Different Online Vs. IRL
"Not been working, but a friend wrote her master's thesis about the different criteria in online dating and real life. Almost half (43%) of the female participants who were in a relationship told they'd never have swiped right on their current partner. Other interesting results were that over 60% of men they wrote with on apps and agreed to go on a date, would have no chance if they asked in real life." —Reddit / AmISeb
That Seems... Problematic
"My ex-bf worked for [this] dating site back in the earlyish 2000s. His job was to pretend to be a woman and message male customers just as their accounts were going to expire. This would encourage them to pay to renew their subscriptions. Once they renewed, he would ghost them.
"He only lasted for a few months due to how unethical it was." —Reddit / visualisewhirledpeas
This Doesn't Make Us Want To Start Swiping
"I tested the communication feature for a dating company that shall remain nameless... The message exchange function needed to be flawless (glitches ironed out, etc.). Except in this case, the requirement was to establish a relationship with a user (usually three on the go simultaneously) and keep it going for about two months. Fake identity was used of course. Months! I researched the person, likes, dislikes, interests, and so on. A whole fake relationship was built. Then, after the test run was over, I'd ghost them, delete my profile, and move on to the next subject. It was unnerving." —Reddit / Marzana1900
An Algorithm Is Not A Professional
"No dating professionals or psychological professionals were ever consulted when we were building our software, software that basically plays cupid and changes the courses of peoples live.
"I kept thinking it would be a good idea to have experts and scientists tell us what determines attraction and sets up a relationship for success, but nobody was ever interested in hearing that. Instead, we made our own choices about how to build this thing." —Reddit / throwaway492130921
Passing The Time At Work
"We used to create fake accounts and chat with users. It was everything from someone having a premium account that wasn't getting responses to bored employees." —Reddit / SupermanistheDR
Good Luck Explaining This Job To Grandma
"I have a friend who works for [a dating app]. Anyway, the company isn't important; what is important is that her ENTIRE job is to remove inappropriate images. Her JOB is to look at dick pics all day. Five days a week. That’s all. No stat. Just a weird job." —Reddit / Lettuce-b-lovely
It's Still A Business For Them
"The algorithms are less sophisticated than you think. ...The main goal of the algorithm is always to get you to pay, never to actually ensure you meet somebody in real life, as much as we tried to lie to ourselves that it was." —Reddit / throwaway492130921
So Where's The Middle Ground?
"OK, so I didn't work with a dating company per se... But I helped software engineers optimize their profiles.
"Men get VERY FEW matches, regardless of how good their profile is.
"Women get A LOT of matches, but most of those matches are useless." —Reddit / Katamende
Here We Go Again
"I used to work at a dating site in the U.K. I was on the tech side, but most of the staff was a group of young women who manually approved images and text changes to profiles.
"About 10 times a day they'd shout that they'd 'got another one.' Which basically meant one of the hundreds of thousands of men on the site has differently thought 'I've thought of something nobody else has tried, I'll upload a picture of my [naked body]' at which point they'd all laugh at it, cancel the profile upload and go back to reading about people's choice of pets or whatever else they thought was interesting." —Reddit / mvrander
People Lie In Their Profiles? Surprise Surprise
"I worked for [a dating app] for a couple of years. This is probably widely known, but women frequently lie about their age and weight and men lie about their height and salary. Also, it's a big problem that women are inundated with DMs while most men get none." —Reddit / ChickumNwaffles
Apparently Women Are Pickier
"Guys swipe right on 47% of profiles. Women only swipe right on 12%.
"I knew some guys would swipe right more than women, wasn't prepared for how little women swipe right!" —Reddit / elatedate
There's One Major Player Invested In Your Love Life
"Most dating sites and apps are owned by one company, The Match Group. They have a near-monopoly. I think Bumble is one of the few not owned by them." —Reddit / HueKass84
So what you're saying is it doesn't make a difference to them which of the apps you choose to use to swipe right.
"Dating Is A Cesspit"
"I used to moderate [a dating app]. The amount of unsolicited dick pictures men would send women, not even accompanied by any words was horrifying. I mean, you'd expect it because online dating is a cesspit, but the sheer amount would still surprise you." —Reddit / Jimmypeglegs
A New Kind Of Ghosting
"Female dating app users tend to sign off for the day several hours earlier than male users, which results in men who log in after about 10 p.m. generally not encountering many logged in female users.
"In order to keep these men feeling like there is genuine female activity on the site (and thus continuing to pay for memberships), dating apps can pay for entire armies of 'ghosts.' Ghost profiles use photos of real women, but are operated by men." —Reddit / yetorico
Talk About Rubbing Salt In A Wound
"A couple met on the dating app I worked on. Unfortunately, the man passed away and the lady returned to the app where they met for remembrance.
"One day, a bug in the system made some profile likes to be sent again after months and she received one from her deceased boyfriend.
"Her bug report was heartbreaking." —Reddit / Sighne
Don't Give Things To Strangers
"People get scammed often. Lonely people are vulnerable and get scammed out of money and gifts." —Reddit / throwitawaydate3109
Don't ever trust someone who is asking for money from you through the internet.
