Are you familiar with the binary approach to rating the opposite sex? If not, let me provide you with a brief explanation: rather than using the conventional ‘1 to 10’ scale to determine how attracted you are to an individual, you will give them either a ‘1’ or a ‘0’. Or, ‘hot’ or ‘not’. And if you’re really stoked on how someone looks you can say something to your squad such as:
“Bro… she’s a double 1.”
That’s when you know your boy means business.
The idea of the binary approach can most commonly associated with the ever-popular dating/hookup app, Tinder. Fortunately for Tinder users nationwide, Tinder has heard enough people use the term ‘double 1’ to describe others and took it to heart. On September 9th, the app announced that they are ready to introduce a ‘Super Like’ option to the already incredibly user-friendly interface.
CEO and cofounder, Sean Rad made the following statement on the newly available user option: “I’ve always said that a match on Tinder is a lot like meeting eyes across the room– Super Like is more like going up to someone and saying ‘hello’.”
So what does this mean exactly for avid Tinderers? Well for one, giving someone a ‘super-like’ on the app is probably still not nearly as daunting a task than actually going up and talking to someone in person– but who are we kidding? We’re millennials. We don’t talk to people face to face. That’s nerve-wracking. So I suppose the argument could be made that Tinder seems to be successfully engineering a way for young people to have even less reasons to peel their eyes away from their phone in hopes of having an honest interaction with another individual.
As of right now, the ‘super like’ option is only available in Australia. Which seems like an awful place to debut such a feature considering most Australians are in fact ‘double 1’s’. How am I supposed to give every sun-kissed surfing enthusiast with an amazing accent and a resemblance to Nicole Kidman just a normal ‘like’? I love you. Let’s run away together. ‘Super-likes’ for you and you and you (okay, you get my point).
While it’s easy for some who are less tech savvy than others to long for the times when a coffee date was still a viable option over a text that resembled some acronym-riddled adjective-noun word gumbo like “yo hmu for d pics. wyd? Netflix n chill? k cool.”, apps like Tinder are (for better or worse) immensely successful. And with over nine billion successful matches already made they don’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
This brings us back to the initial question, do we really need a ‘super like’ option? Or more specifically, do college students need a ‘super like’ option? My gut instincts say that the answer is a resounding no. Especially if something is not done to limit the number of ‘super-likes’ a user is allowed to distribute to his/her prospects. Then again, maybe if everyone continues to rate one another as a ‘double 1’ so to speak, confidence levels will skyrocket and more face to face interactions will inevitably end up occurring.
Or maybe we’ll all just end up on ‘super-liking’ our way to a future of Facetime first dates where you don’t even have to be at the same restaurant as the person you asked out. Here’s to hoping that I am very wrong and just disillusioned at this point.
If you’d like to provide us with your own opinion on Tinder’s new venture, Tweet us your thoughts to @StarterNoise using the hashtag #TinderSuperLike
Feature Image: Courtney Carmody
