Tinder is a virtual hellscape of unmitigated regret and disappointment for the perpetually out-of-love. The dating app, however, has attracted a different kind of masochist: political canvassers. Some women, fed up with swiping left on dud after dud and carrying dead-end conversations with horny chauvinists, are beginning to use the app to campaign for a Bernice Sanders presidency. One woman is documenting her political efforts on a Tumblr called Tinder Campaigning, where she posts screenshots of conversations she matched with.
“Hey :),” she writes to her matches, “are you interesting in discussing our savior Bernie Sanders?”
Not surprisingly, the messages that come back to her are often infected with misogynistic bile. Others responded to her by voicing their support for a Trump presidency. Most people just wanted to bone.
Another Bernie campaigner, Robyn Gedrich, messages her subjects thusly: “Do you feel the bern? Please text WORK to 82623 for me. Thanks!” She told BuzzFeed that she began using Tinder this way because she was disappointed with its usefulness as a dating app.
“These guys are disgusting. They’re just looking for sex and that’s it,” she said. “So if they’re going to swipe right, they might as well do some good and donate to the man, the myth, the legend, Bernie.”
Jezebel interviewed a man who’s been on the receiving end of these campaigning efforts on Tinder and Bumble (the “feminist” dating app) twice. You’d think he’d be bitter, but the dude is pretty chill about it. “Am I bummed that I have now been the subject of this twice? No. Amused? Absolutely,” he told Jezebel’s Anna Merlan. “I think a lot of people use dating apps out of boredom so it’s definitely interesting and hilarious to see it turned into an outlet for something like politics rather than mindless swiping.”
