IN THE SPOTLIGHT
NAME: Elisabeth Timmermans EDUCATION: Media and Communication FUNCTION: Postdoctoral researcher
But hadn’t it already lost much of that stigma with the launch of websites like Relatieplanet and Lexa? Hadn’t those normalised online dating? ELISABETH: ‘Not among eighteen-year-olds, they hadn’t. I interviewed lots of students as well for my research and their view was that it’s okay to use dating apps, but not for finding a girlfriend or boyfriend. That’s why they’ll often say they’re just using it for amusement. The stigma remains, but in a different form.’ SHANGWEI: ‘It’s a different matter in the gay scene. Most of those I interviewed found partners through dating apps. And that’s because it's harder to find a partner offline if you’re gay. Hence the early introduction of Grindr, which turned out to be a godsend for people averse to broadcasting their sexual orientation to the world.’ Are there any significant differences between how men and women use dating apps? ELISABETH: ‘Yes. For instance, on Grindr, you can immediately start chatting and sending pictures to one another; whereas on Tinder, you need to match before you can do that. It has to do with safety. Women are taught from an early age to beware of strangers. Another interesting gender-related aspect of Tinder is that it places women in a position of power: instead of having to deal with an avalanche of emails from men, they get to decide who’s permitted to contact them and who isn’t.’ SHANGWEI: ‘Gay men also worry about their safety. Although when Chinese men talk this with respect to online dating, it usually has
more to do with the risk of contracting HIV. Anti-gay hate crimes are rare in China. Or at least rarer than they are in Europe. It’s a surprising finding, given that homosexuality is far from embraced in China, a consequence of which is that uploading profile pictures remains a barrier for gay men who care about their privacy.’ Have you tried dating apps yourself? SHANGWEI: ‘Jack'd, the dating app for gay men, had quite negative connotations among my friends in China when it was first introduced, sometime in 2010. We’d always been very discreet about our sexual orientation, and didn’t want just anyone to be privy to our lives, not even amongst ourselves. We just didn’t talk about it. But in 2014 I went to Paris on an exchange programme, and was suddenly among complete strangers and no longer had to worry about going public on a dating app. Because I’d of course been curious all along.’
Eighteen-year-olds are happy to admit using dating apps, but not for finding a girlfriend or boyfriend Was it a happy experience? SHANGWEI: ‘I’m not really sure; it was all so new and I was still learning about myself. I did go on a few dates, but they weren’t particularly successful.’ ELISABETH: ‘The first part of my research involved interviews with people who had Tinder accounts, so I didn’t really need to have one myself at that point. But once I got to the questionnaire design stage, I needed to know how the app worked in order to ask the right questions, so I created a profile. But I was always open about my motives for being there.’ What’s the main insight that emerged from your research? ELISABETH: ‘Gosh, there were loads! I went in thinking there were only three motives for being on Tinder: sex,
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PHOTOGRAPHY ELISABETH: CARMEN VOS
at the time was considered a bit weird, because you had to know a lot about computers to do so. That is in addition to the stigma that already came with the practice, i.e. if you’re dating online, you’re probably a bit of a loser in real life. Tinder dismantled those associations by making online dating seem like a game.’