Whenever people start dating differently, a freakout inevitably ensues. Add technology to the mix and you get fear of change, doubled. When people began forming connections online, romantic or otherwise, the anonymity the internet allowed was terrifying. Anyone you talked to online could be a murderer, or so it seemed. Even as people got over that, a stigma lingered around online datingβthat you must be desperate, or weird, to try it. Whitney Wolfe, the founder of the dating app Bumble, said she thinks some companies were promoting that message themselves, through the way they marketed.
Skepticism and fear are typical reactions to technology that changes how people connect. My colleague Derek Thompson, who interviewed Wolfe at the Washington Ideas Forum, brought up a song by Irving Berlin , warning women against dating men who own cars. Wolfe said she hoped her app could erase some of those fears for heterosexual women who are online dating; the gimmick of Bumble that separates it from Tinder, Hinge, and the scads of others is that the woman has to send the first message.
Unfortunately, men regularly send women harassing messages on dating platforms like Tinder and OKCupid, and the culture around online dating can seem toxically misogynist at times. Wolfe herself is a former Tinder employee, and settled a sexual harassment and sex discrimination lawsuit against her former bosses in Wolfe thinks some of the harassment comes from men who are afraid of being rejected.
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Julie Beck.
