Week 9: Online DatingIndah, Ian and Eric

Online Dating

“The origins”

Late 1990s: The rise of the internet, Multi Domain User (MDU) chatrooms,

personal blogging. Changed the way we identity ourselves and how we all

communicate.

Started the integration of online and offline personalities.

2004: Facebook, Myspace, Flickr - Social Networking Sites started to gain popularity.

Match.com (2014)

Core Traits | Virtual Attributes

Eharmony.com

You’ve Got Mail (1998)

A 2009 survey of couples showed that the internet was the second most popular place

to meet potential dates, second behind mutual friends.

Current State of Online Dating

“A Wasteland”

Bye Felipe is an Instagram account set up by Alexandra Tweten where women can share screenshots of abuse on dating platforms.

http://instagram.com/p/u04nYMpK-4/?modal=true

Alexandra Tweten’s Reasons For Creating Bye Felicia

A) Commiserating with other women(you can’t be a woman online and not get creepy message)

B) Letting men know what it’s like being a woman online (it’s not all cupcakes and rainbows!)

C) To expose the problematic entitlement men feel they need to exert over women in general.

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/10/31/why-i-created-bye-felipe/

http://straightwhiteboystexting.tumblr.com/page/6

http://www.tumblr.com/search/boys+of+tinder

University of Toronto’s “Love Online: A Report on Digital Dating in Canada”

Analysis of Online Dating

“A new community”

Online Dating as a Community

• People want to be part of communities.

• Gemeinschaft vs. gesellschaft.

• Detraditionalisation.

• Internet appeal.

• Safety of online environment.

Technodating

• Not necessarily a means to an end but an end itself.

• Appeal is often in the app/service.

• Reconditioning ourselves to a new model of dating/ mating.

Self Expression Online

• Sense of needing to advertising ones self.

• Presentation hugely important.

• New, artificial playing ground.

• General concern with body image.

Discussion