The Dating App Lawsuit
F*cking finally.
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CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of suicidal ideation, sexual assault, and death. And yeah, this essay is about dating apps.
Hurting people for profit shouldn’t be a debate. It should just be bad. If you hurt people, and take their money while you’re hurting them, the world should think you’re vile—full stop. But in 2018 when I started talking about dating apps in a less-than glowing light, and in 2019 when I started suggesting we could live without them, and in 2021 when I made Chapter 14 of my book Delete Your Dating Apps, I was the wrong one.
I was the one who should be embarrassed, ashamed, a pariah of the social media space who shits on love and isn’t welcomed by audiences or brands because ew…that’s the girl who wants everyone to be alone and we can only feel pretty when boys like us. That was me. All for suggesting that dating apps have zero incentive to help people find love, because they make way more money if we never do. My entire career I have found myself swimming against a current that beats the emotional shit out of me and sees a fraction of the content creator glow that people who make cookie-brownies get to enjoy. Last week, a federal lawsuit was filed in San Francisco against The Match Group arguing that the dating app parent company “gamifies the services ‘to transform users into gamblers locked in a search for psychological rewards that Match makes elusive on purpose.’” Said another way, I was fucking right.