Abstract: This paper presents a study on dating apps – how they are used and interpreted by Bulgarians in the process of searching for a partner. The starting point for the study is Daniel Miller’s research on social media and his conclusion that their importance and impact are determined both by the intentions of their creators and the practices of their users. The fieldwork conducted for this study includes twenty-five semi-structured interviews and observation of the use of Tinder in Bulgaria carried out in the first half of 2016. It can be noted that since this period of early adoption of dating apps the search for a partner through such intermediaries has been normalized. This raises questions about the future of this type of communication and of fundamental social processes such as self-representation and establishing trust.
Keywords: dating apps, partner search, digital networks, online flirting
In the mid-1990s, the pop song “Ironic” by Canadian singer Alanis Morissette became a hit all over the world. Generation X teenagers, who then watched MTV around the clock, suffered along with the singer, imagining what it would be like to have rain on one’s wedding day or to meet the man of one’s dreams, and then meet his beautiful wife. Twenty years later, in 2015, Morissette performed an updated version of her song[1] with lyrics about the “difficulties” in the lives of millennials, the generation obsessed with social media and apps on their mobile phones. The chorus was about the new “worst thing” in love: “It’s like swiping left on your future soulmate.” Just five years earlier this phrase would have been incomprehensible, but today swiping has become a symbol of intimate relationships between people – potential “soulmates” are swiped left or right on dating apps.
Dating apps, which are the subject of this study[2], are smartphone applications that enable users to search for a partner. They have attracted interest both for the rapid growth in their use (Smith and Anderson, 2016) and for their expected development. According to studies conducted in the UK, whereas in 1950, 70% of couples had first met on a dance floor (Jack, 2016), it is expected that by the year 2040, 70% of couples will meet online (eHarmony, 2014). In addition to being a new technology with significant user potential, dating apps are also seen as a new cultural phenomenon. According to Vanity Fair, dating apps have caused an “apocalypse” of romantic relationships in the US and the end of commitment, at the expense of an endless series of noncommittal one-night stands (Sales, 2015). Forbes has reported that one of the leading dating apps, Tinder, has helped “fuel a social revolution in India” (Groves, 2016), while in China there is talk of a sexual revolution brought about by the use of Chinese dating apps (Wang, 2015). The Guardian has defined the present as a “technosexual era” and has likewise declared the end of romantic love (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2014).
Against this background, this study seeks to examine the use of dating apps in Bulgaria. It aims to investigate cultural attitudes, or how dating platforms are perceived, how they are used, and what their role is in social interactions among Bulgarians. The study starts from the thesis advanced by internet ethnographer Daniel Miller that the consequences of social networking are the result both of the intentions of the creators, reflected in the design of the platforms, and the perceptions and actions of the users. In his book Tales from Facebook, Miller (2011: 158) claims that
there is no such thing [as Facebook]. The word Facebook stands for the social networking facility developed in the US. But what any given population actually uses, based on that facility, quickly develops its own local cultural genre and expectations, which will differ from others.
By analogy, we can ask ourselves: What is the genre of use of dating apps in Bulgaria? Is searching for dates online still taboo, or will the new mobile technology change the existing mores, as it is claimed to have done in other countries?
The bulk of the analysed empirical material consists of primary data collected through twenty-five semi-structured interviews and informal conversations conducted in April and May 2016. The respondents were ten women and fifteen men, aged 21 to 42 years, who had used dating apps for a period ranging from two weeks to three years. All respondents had experience with Tinder, and some also with other dating apps. Secondary materials related to the public presentation of dating apps in traditional media as well as on social media and forums were also analysed.
Connected by Phone
Dating apps are a technological innovation in a long line of matchmaking intermediaries that have existed in both traditional and modern contexts. Dating apps combine features of the mobile phone and the internet, two technologies with a significant role in interpersonal relationships.
The time when mobile phones were used only for making calls and texting is long gone, and they are now a field of new interactions such as text-message flirting, constant care and/or control, as well as extreme forms of intimacy – for example, “an extended encounter in which multiple communication practices are added to the physical encounter via the mobile phone” (Neykova, 2015: 61). In fact, searching for dates via the phone goes back to the 1980s and 1990s telephone bars for singles in the US and the UK. Such places ceased to exist with the advent of mobile phones, but they reflect two important ideas. Firstly, the initial contact with strangers is subject to technological intervention designed to eliminate social “barriers” such as the fear of rejection. And secondly, technology shortens the search time and increases the range of options.
The mobile phone as an extension of the body (Neykova, 2015: 20) has an even greater potential than the landline phone for involvement in intimate relationships. Proxidating, the first ever Bluetooth dating software for mobile phones, was launched in France in 2003. Users set search criteria for a potential partner and the service used Bluetooth to alert them when a person with a matching profile was within 15–20 metres.
Fig. 1. Smartphone Users, Global, 2005 – 2015. Source: Аllen, 2016 (accessed 16 June 2016).
This first attempt to use the phone to identify and find a partner remained unsuccessful. But the subsequent development of the mobile phone’s technical capabilities enabled it to do more and more things, evolving into an ever more universal command centre of daily life, “a kind of remote control for people’s lives” (Ben-Ze’ev, 2004: 16). The introduction of smartphones[3] with a multi-touch screen, and specifically of the iPhone in 2007, led to a huge increase in smartphone users worldwide (from 500 million users in 2010 to over 2.5 billion in 2015, see Fig. 1, Аllen, 2016).
The growth in smartphone use is directly linked to the development of the app economy, which aims to ensure that there is an app for just about everything. As early as 2009, New Scientist welcomed us to “Appland” and formulated the new human phantasm: “becoming the most virtually enhanced human in the world” through the apps installed on our phones (Fisher, 2009). The forecasts for the app market were for steadily increasing growth and revenue, and it is noteworthy that dating apps were the category expected to grow the most in the 2015–2019 period (Juniper Research, 2015).
In addition to being a new-generation phone feature, dating apps represented the next stage in the development of online dating sites. Such sites appeared in the early years of the internet and were originally electronic versions of “lonely hearts” newspaper ads published as early as the late 17th century (Kennedy, 2010). Internet dating sites failed to build an entirely positive image, being associated with desperation, lack of social skills, and possibilities for deception. Even when a third of recently married US couples had met online (Magid, 2013), there were still headlines such as the following: “Finding love online – is it still a taboo?” (Keating, 2013). Despite the social stigma, the commercial potential of such services led to a market expansion, including the possibility to search for a match on all sorts of demographic and lifestyle parameters, ranging from a tattoo (http://tattoosingles.de/) to a DNA match (http://www.genepartner.com/) or a horoscope match (http://www.astralfeeling.com/).
The first successful dating app was also targeted at a specific demographic. Created in the US in 2009, Grindr presented itself as “the largest all-male mobile social network in the world … [which] has supplanted the gay bar and online dating sites as the best way for gay men to meet the right person, at the right time, in the right place” (Grindr Press Kit, 2015). Unlike its predecessor Proxidating, Grindr uses GPS to locate other users who are nearby. Grindr’s success is attributed to the fact that it helps users find a partner here and now. According to Moira Weigel (2016), a researcher in the field of love and intimacy, “[a]ll successful dating apps succeed because they recreate versions of older dating institutions and experiences in a new, digitally networked form.” For the gay community in the US, these are gay bars, gyms, and bathhouses, where codes of conduct involve precisely the display and evaluation of looks, which is also the process underlying Grindr’s design.
By 2012, Grindr’s success had already drawn attention and resources to the development of dating apps. Launched in the same year, Tinder quickly became the most popular dating app for heterosexual users (see Fig. 2). As of May 2016, Tinder had users in 196 countries across the world, over 10 billion matches between people who liked each other, 26 million matches a day, and 1.4 billion swipes a day.
Fig. 2. Mobile dating apps – U.S. market share by sessions (Devon, 2015).
Like its predecessor, Grindr, Tinder allows users to create a profile (photos and short text) through their Facebook profile and to set search criteria. These criteria are proximity, gender, and age. The search result is presented as a series of user profiles that can be viewed one-at-a-time, giving users the option of swiping to the right for the profiles they like or to the left for those they don’t. But apart from this extremely easy way to use the app, another aspect of Tinder is considered key to its success – there is no risk of rejection at first contact. The evaluation of profiles remains anonymous, that is, there is no way for a user to know who has seen their profile and disliked it, and the app only allows people who have mutually liked each other to start communicating through text messages.
Fig. 3. Tinder’s user interface.
The app’s logo is a stylized flame, a reference to persistent metaphors such as “love spark” or “the fire/flames of love” used by both popular culture and high art. In his 1993 essay La llama doble – Amor y erotismo (The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism) Octavio Paz, cited by Zygmunt Bauman (1998: 19), uses fire as the central metaphor to
explor[e] the complex interaction between sex, eroticism and love … [A]bove the primordial fire of sex, lit by nature long before the first stirrings of humanity, rises the red flame of eroticism, above which quivers and shivers the delicate blue flame of love.
What kind of flames is Tinder trying to ignite? According to its website, “Tinder is how people meet. It’s like real life, but better”, and its motto is “Meet interesting people nearby”. In their public appearances, Tinder representatives have challenged its definition as a “hook-up app” (Hancock, 2015), insisting that it offers “the chance to meet people who are really right for you, who you could build a much better life with” (to quote Dan Gould, Vice President of Technology at Tinder – see The Mobile Love Industry, 2015).
Tinder’s promotional video trending in May 2016, shows a young woman from New York going on vacation in Europe. Before she leaves, she meets – through the app’s paid subscription service – a young man she then has fun with in London, but things don’t work out and she slams the door on him. On her way to Paris, the young woman uses the app again and finds a new, more successful date, but the time comes for her to travel on to Istanbul. There she no longer uses the app and is lonely and sad. But the young man from Paris surprises her by arriving in Istanbul and she enjoys the rest of her vacation with him. Finally, we see her back in a New York office, happily reminiscing about her vacation. In addition to such videos, Tinder promotes itself through the stories of real users – its website has a special section about couples who have met thanks to the app, and all users are invited to share their dating experiences as well.
The above examples show that Tinder’s creators are trying to make users associate the app with key elements of the notion of romantic love, such as an encounter in the “most romantic city” or a romantic surprise from the man who rushes to the aid of his girlfriend. According to Anthony Giddens (1992), an important part of the ideal of romantic love is the idea of a shared history which two individuals develop together, or of a life together – which was the goal that Tinder’s vice president of technology was referring to. All user reviews on the website are also by couples and not, for example, by a user who has used the paid version of the app, has met a series of wonderful partners in different places, and is on their way to the next destination. In terms of profitability – a topic we will discuss in more detail in the next part of this paper – the traveler’s story is the better option for Tinder’s owners than all the stories of people who have already hooked up and no longer need the app (at least in theory). The choice of how to promote the app reflects what Tinder’s creators think motivates users, and what is the socially acceptable presentation of the app’s goals – namely, creating couples. Tinder’s promotional video discussed above has an open ending, we don’t know what happened after, and it is this openness to interpretations that is perhaps one of the most essential qualities of the app. The ideal of creating a couple who will post their smiling photos motivates as much as the process of finding the right partner.
Another fairytale metaphor for Tinder is represented in the video Tinderella: A Modern Fairy Tale, a parody on Disney’s Cinderella. The video, created by the website CollegeHumor and posted on YouTube at the beginning of 2014, had more than eight million views by mid-2016. The main character, Tinderella, goes on a date via Tinder with a young man called Princeton. After spending the night together, “she snuck out that morning at half past four a.m., and they lived happily ever after because they never spoke again” (CollegeHumor, 2014). The “winner” in this situation seems to be Tinderella, who walks away without looking back, and in such a reading the use of Tinder may be defined as a resource for postfeminism: “Women … can … have sex ‘like men’ while still maintaining all the privileges associated with being an attractive woman” (Gerhard, 2005: 37).
In her much quoted and discussed Vanity Fair article on Tinder, Nancy Jo Sales (2015) rejects such a hypothesis. The article is based on more than fifty interviews with women and men, and its main claim is that, thanks to Tinder, men can find sexual partners much more easily, which reduces their motivation to commit seriously, and women suffer because of this. According to one of the respondents quoted in the article, women can’t even complain about men being interested only in their bodies and in having sex, because “if you say any of this out loud, it’s like … you somehow missed the whole memo about third-wave feminism”. According to Sales, gender inequality is still too strong, and more so in private relationships than in the public sphere. Sales’s article provoked strong reactions both from Tinder, who accused her of being one-sided, and from many other commentators with diverging positions. In a conspiratorial spirit, it was even suggested that Tinder’s strong reaction to Sales’s article “was in fact one big cynical PR stunt” (Hancock, 2015). Regardless of the differences in positions, all public discussion of Tinder proceeds from the assumption that it is a hook-up app – an assumption that is either confirmed or contested.
Algorithms for Love
We will also examine two aspects that are not a visible part of the user experience: how Tinder functions technically and commercially. Tinder’s main achievement is its user-friendly interface. The series of profiles the user sees seem to be displayed in random order, and are apparently based solely on the set criteria of gender, age, and proximity. In reality, Tinder, as well as all other dating apps, use algorithms with a number of variables to determine in what order, how many, and what profiles each user sees. That is, if two users in the same physical location set the same search criteria, they will get different results because the latter are also determined by a range of factors such as their previous use of the app, how much they are liked by other users, and the information on their Facebook profiles. Tinder’s algorithms are kept secret, but they have attracted interest both from media (Scott, 2016) and from individual users (for example, on www.quora.com), including from one of the respondents in this study. According to Tinder CEO Sean Rad:
We look at your behavior and we optimize who we show you based on who you are saying yes or no to. … We take all that [age, common friends, interests] into consideration when serving better recommendations in the future. (Yury, 2014)
In other words, Tinder has its own logic of operation, whose goals may vary: optimizing the user experience, but also the desired behaviour (more activity) as well as the user value, as evaluated by the company. Tinder’s revenue is generated from its paid subscription service and from advertising (AdAge, 2016).
Another commercially and strategically interesting aspect is that Tinder is not a standalone business, it is part of IAC, a NASDAQ-listed media and internet company that owns more than 150 brands in different categories, including Match Group, which owns 45 online dating brands. Among them are mobile apps as well as leading dating sites like www.match.com. This means that Tinder can develop without depending directly on its profitability and that it can, for example, experiment with different features and algorithms. At the same time, Tinder was presented even on its owners’ website (www.iac.com) as “one of the fastest growing social startups and mobile apps of all time … launched to address the social and physical barriers of forming new friendships and relationships”. Whereas Grindr is a classic startup created by visionary entrepreneurs in a garage, in Tinder’s case this is rather a consciously chosen position that provides the symbolic resources of startup status as a new culture of work and social life that is ever more important to young people. If until a few years ago the best graduates wanted to work in big corporations, in recent years founding or working in startups has become very prestigious (Robehmed, 2013). Contemporary youth elites not only work in startups, they organize their whole lives through mobile apps created by other startups.
Tinder in Bulgaria
As we noted above, dating apps are clearly positioned as a means of finding new contacts for purposes that may vary, but that are invariably within the realm of intimate relationships. To use a mobile app, one first has to look for it and install it on one’s smartphone – unlike, say, a website which one may come across without any specific intent, by browsing the web from link to link. In Tinder’s case, the process between the decision to use and actual use of the app is very short and easy, but depends on conscious intent. Based on the conducted fieldwork, this part of the paper presents the intentions of Tinder users in Bulgaria and their respective outcomes.
Reasons and justifications of use
The first contact with Tinder often came by way of the media and social networks – Tinder was seen in a TV series or on a YouTube channel followed by respondents. Another main source were friends who already had experience with the app, and who often came from or were living abroad. For a third group of respondents, following new developments in IT and trying them out was part of their professional duties.
For the majority of respondents, Tinder was not the first online technology they used to look for a partner. Previous relationships and marriages had come about via the late 1990s chat platforms such as mIRC, ICQ, and Skype, dating sites like sladur.com,[4] thematic forums (for example, devoted to Harry Potter), Facebook, and other dating apps launched before Tinder, such as Grindr and OkCupid.
Why did the respondents decide to download Tinder and start using it? The reasons most of them pointed out were associated with interest in new technologies. We may interpret these responses in different ways: on the one hand, as a way to downplay personal interest in the app’s function by focusing on its novelty, and on the other, as an instance of FoMO (fear of missing out), a concept related to social media use and defined as “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent” (Przybylski et al., 2013: 1841). What was more interesting was that having Tinder, especially if one could claim to be one of the “pioneers”, could be a matter of digital prestige, making its use necessary in order to maintain this “elite” status. Once Tinder began to be used widely, the trend would reverse and the “elites” left it in order to look for the next new app.
The second legitimation of Tinder’s use was defined by the respondents themselves as “a social experiment” and described as research interest in the new technology. Again, it wasn’t the app’s primary function that was pointed out as the most important reason for using Tinder – on the contrary, what was seen as attractive, for example, was the opportunity to communicate with people one would never be interested in in real life, solely for the purpose of having fun online. In other words, Tinder was used as a stage allowing one to assume different roles and to play out imaginary identities without moving from the online to the offline space. In his 2004 study Love Online: Emotions on the Internet, Aaron Ben-Ze’ev explained “the lure of the Net” precisely with the possibility to play out an unlimited range and type of roles. The anonymity characteristic of the first stage of development of internet communications, and the unlimited possibilities for imagination that it afforded, are much less a part of Web 2.0 and Tinder (which relies on the non-anonymity of its users through its link to Facebook), but the trend observed by Ben-Ze’ev is still valid.
Although there were some respondents who said they used Tinder specifically to look for a partner, the main reason for using the app was not loneliness, a term used by just one respondent, but boredom, cited as a reason by all. This had to do with the fact that the mobile phone with its various apps had long since become the main source of entertainment in their everyday lives. Using Tinder seemed like a safe game as one never realized how many users had rejected them, nor did they have to communicate with someone they didn’t like. In general, the respondents tended to be sceptical and critical about the app, but for quite different reasons. For example, for some it was too easy to be found (identified because of the link to Facebook), while for others it was too difficult to find a suitable person because of the insufficient information presented in users’ profiles. These and similar responses reflected the ambivalence of participating in social networks: we search for others, but we do not want everyone to find us; we want to have many options, but to be the only ones chosen by the others.
The fun and play that respondents associated with Tinder varied. For some of those in relationships, using the app was more about defining existing relationships and personal independence than about entering into new ones. The use of the app was also very much geared towards self-esteem (according to the number of likes) or self-improvement (when used as a “device for training” in flirting). Respondents discussed the stereotypical image of young women who collect and count their matches but do not chat with anyone even after right-swiping on them. Similarly, stories were shared about young men who count their matches (in the same way previous generations counted phone numbers in their little black notebooks) and shared them, thus socializing with their friends and earning a reputation for themselves as successful playboys. The difference was that the new technology kept an archive of images and messages that authenticated the narrative.
The very process of using Tinder was compared to “clicking away” or “playing a game” on one’s phone in which points are scored and levels passed. For one respondent, the challenge was “scrolling” through all profiles; for another, it was finding the strangest person. Upon finding a match, the app itself prompts users to “keep playing” by continuing to view and swipe on profiles. The lack of obvious logic to the order in which profiles are displayed creates the feeling that the next profile will be even more interesting. In the principles of gamification, this is defined as non-fixed rewards (Deterding, 2012), that is, the player does not know when they will receive a “reward” and is always motivated to see the next card. Thus, the very process of using the technology becomes an object of desire and brings both instant gratification and the desire “for more”.
One of the significant novelties of Tinder and other apps using GPS is that they allow a new approach to space and territory. A phone armed with Tinder becomes a device for a new type of territorial conquest. You find yourself in a new place and want to meet new potential partners – if you rely on meeting new people face-to-face, your options will be limited because of a series of issues: where to go, how many people will be there, how many of them you will be able to chat up, and with how many you will like each other. With Tinder, this whole search process is shortened, sped up, and made much easier. The app is compared to a compass that extracts the necessary information from the physical space. Thus, it is just as important on familiar territory, where the searching gaze is constantly shifting from the real to the virtual environment. Your own vision is supplemented by the “eyes” of Tinder, which has been set to search within a minimal perimeter. Our interest is attracted by someone we see, but thanks to Tinder (and even more so, with other specialized apps) we can find out key information about them, such as whether they have the same sexual orientation and interests as us, before we make contact online or offline.
Self-presentation
One of the main aspects of using Tinder is self-presentation. In the previous generation of dating sites and other online matchmaking platforms, anonymity was a leading factor in creating and developing online identities. Tinder claims to offer more credible information about users because of the mandatory link to Facebook, which, however, does not rule out the possibility of fake profiles.
Upon creating their own profile, the respondents in Bulgaria took different approaches depending on their goals, but the majority tried to present a comprehensive picture of themselves that reflected their lifestyle, socioeconomic status, hobbies, and interests. There were specific rules about the types of photos to include, which were followed by most of the respondents. They readily distinguished between different main styles of representing others: “kifli”[5]/“batki”[6]/“chalga lovers”/“urban types”/“hipsters”/“art”/“foreigners”, etc., each one of them characterized by several recognizable elements.
Communication on Tinder also followed different patterns, but one of the established rules was to move from the app to another (usually online) platform such as Facebook or Viber. Although Tinder could lead to online-only friendships, the use of the app entailed, according to respondents, eventually communicating in real life. The prevalent opinion was that it was not very easy to get to the point of meeting face-to-face, which was crucial for developing a relationship.
For the majority of respondents, the overall online image and presence of a potential partner was key in taking the decision to meet them face-to-face. They viewed and analysed that person’s overall activity on Facebook, ran Google searches, etc. Automatically generated indications of the person’s status (whether they were online or not) or of reception of a message (message “seen” or person “last seen” online) were often pointed out as an important part of communication and also as a reason for choosing a particular platform for continuing communication. “Digital footprint” is a term used by Ian Williams (2009) for the set of digital traces associated with a particular person. They may be the result both of conscious actions by the person or others (for example, posts, emails) and of automatically generated indications of actions (for example, the “seen” feature).
The respondents’ choice of platform for continuing communication after Tinder wasn’t just a product of technical difference, it also had social and emotional significance. Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller (2012) have developed a theory of “polymedia”, according to which when communication is carried out through a constellation of different media, the mechanism by which this is done is meaningfully and culturally loaded. For some respondents in Bulgaria, making friends on Facebook was more difficult than sharing their phone number. For others, it was the opposite and they considered their phone number the most private piece of information even though they posted very actively and openly on Facebook.
Main Conclusions
At the time of writing, dating apps are a relatively new technology and the study on the use of Tinder in Bulgaria is a glimpse at their entry into the most intimate field. Such apps are expected to expand their reach and to become the norm for more and more people in their search for a partner – hence the importance of tracking the development of this new scenography in personal relationships.
The analysis of the results of the fieldwork conducted in Bulgaria led to several main conclusions. As in the case of other social media, dating apps were used in many different ways directed at both self and others. The social imaginary about Tinder sustained both the romantic idea of the sought-after soulmate and the image of a catalogue for ordering quick sex. Promoted as being “like real life, but better”, Tinder was the desired space in which we met only people we liked, while the other simply disappeared.
Tinder’s success in attracting millions of people around the world was also helping to normalize the search for dating and love via IT. Having the latest app on one’s phone was – and still is – much more a sign of prestige than of the desperation associated with dating sites. And the smartphone is constantly expanding its reach as the command centre of our daily lives.
Tinder attracted with a desired notion directed at the self – “I won’t be rejected”; and with a second one directed at the other – “the right person can be found”. The very process of using the app was also key to its success: Tinder itself could be a game with different goals which, however, were separate from and sometimes more important than the search for a partner.
Dating apps have blurred the line between real and virtual. Previously, this line remained a little clearer: when one went out, the PC stayed on the desk. The phone that is “constantly in our hand” draws the necessary information from the space around us, changing our interactions with the environment. The “here” and “now” have become stratified, allowing multiple interaction to happen in parallel, at once online and offline. The question for the future is not whether mobile apps will end romantic relationships, but whether such relationships will be possible only with people filtered through the apps on our phone. In essence, this is the question about the foundation upon which trust will be built in an intimate relationship, and about whether access to a person’s digital footprint will be decisive.
And if phones have long connected and separated the voices of people in love, mobile apps connect the digital footprints of two people. The online encounter eliminates all senses except sight, but provides a more or less rich archive created by and about the person on the internet. “Calibrating” our digital aggregate identity is likely to become an ever more valuable skill and an important customer service, while the decision about what part of our digital footprint to keep and what to delete (if possible) makes remembering a conscious choice and obligation.
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[1] Morissette sang the updated version on The Late Late Show with James Corden. The video was viewed more than 11 million times on YouTube from November 2015 to May 2016.
[2] This paper was originally published in Bulgarian in Seminar_BG, 17, in December 2018. It is based on the author’s Master’s thesis in Cultural Anthropology submitted in 2016. The discussion of dating apps reflects their development as of the first half of 2016 and does not cover any of the many subsequent developments.
[3] Smartphones are mobile phones that have an operating system similar to that of a personal computer.
[4] A Bulgarian dating site launched in 2000. As of 10 June 2016, it had almost 500,000 users, <https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sladur.com>, (accessed 16 June 2016).
[5] Sing. kifla, literally “bun” – slang term for superficial girls who care only about looks, money, and popularity.
[6] Sing. batka – slang term for guys with big muscles and small brains.
Biographical note
Dr. Rossitsa Bolgurova is a lecturer in Professional Communication at RMIT University Vietnam. Her main research interests are in the field of media studies, business anthropology, and the commercialization of cultural practices.
Email: rossitsa.bolgurova[at]rmit.edu.vn
