Tinder Social Shows All Your Friends You're Just A Horn Dog
Tinder, a popular mobile app that purports to help "meet interesting people nearby," is testing a new feature called Tinder Social. The concept behind Tinder Social is to bring together groups of friends and it works the same way as finding dates—swipe and match with other groups that are also headed out to do something interesting. That's fine and dandy except that Tinder users are automatically opted into Tinder Social; if you're using Tinder on the down low (or simply don't want to advertise your participation to your friends), you'll have to opt-out before you're discovered.
Naturally Tinder doesn't think that's a big deal, in part because it views its app as more than a hook-up tool. Tinder also goes out of its way to point out that Tinder Social is not a group dating feature, even though that's how some are perceiving it. Like a honey badger, Tinder doesn't give a turd about such things, and if you don't like it the onus is on you to opt-out, you party pooper.
"Any user who would prefer not to be added to groups can opt out of Tinder Social through his/her settings to no longer appear on their friends' lists. We are only testing it at this point, but it's important to note Tinder's not a secret considering 70 percent of users download Tinder because their friends recommend it," Tinder updated its blog post to read after catching flak in the media and from its users.
The feature addition makes sense in the grand scheme of things, especially if Tinder's looking to push the social aspect. Snapchat made a similar transition in public perception when it was initially viewed as simply a sexting tool, but has grown into a widely used communications app. It makes sense, but what's odd is Tinder's insistence to automatically opt users into Tinder Social, especially since the app advertises a level of discreteness by pointing out that nobody knows if you swiped left or right unless there's a match. Tinder's app description also reassures users it will "never post anything to Facebook."
In any event, this is the direction Tinder has chosen to go, at least for now. At present Tinder Social is only being tested with a "small group of users in Australia," though Tinder has plans to launch the feature globally soon.
Naturally Tinder doesn't think that's a big deal, in part because it views its app as more than a hook-up tool. Tinder also goes out of its way to point out that Tinder Social is not a group dating feature, even though that's how some are perceiving it. Like a honey badger, Tinder doesn't give a turd about such things, and if you don't like it the onus is on you to opt-out, you party pooper.
"Any user who would prefer not to be added to groups can opt out of Tinder Social through his/her settings to no longer appear on their friends' lists. We are only testing it at this point, but it's important to note Tinder's not a secret considering 70 percent of users download Tinder because their friends recommend it," Tinder updated its blog post to read after catching flak in the media and from its users.
The feature addition makes sense in the grand scheme of things, especially if Tinder's looking to push the social aspect. Snapchat made a similar transition in public perception when it was initially viewed as simply a sexting tool, but has grown into a widely used communications app. It makes sense, but what's odd is Tinder's insistence to automatically opt users into Tinder Social, especially since the app advertises a level of discreteness by pointing out that nobody knows if you swiped left or right unless there's a match. Tinder's app description also reassures users it will "never post anything to Facebook."
In any event, this is the direction Tinder has chosen to go, at least for now. At present Tinder Social is only being tested with a "small group of users in Australia," though Tinder has plans to launch the feature globally soon.
