Are “Elite” Dating Apps Controlling Our Online Dating Pool?
A New Kind of Dating Rejection…
@zoeisabellakravitzOver the last year, new dating apps have been popping up everywhere. Bumble and Hinge have held the top of the landscape for years now, with a memorable mention of Tinder.
But like its older, wiser cousin, Tinder, Bumble has been slowly drifting to the background on route to being the next Netflix documentary series. With the loss of credibility, though Hinge is holding up well, there’s a large amount of white space for emerging dating app creatives to fill the room.
Higher demand for increasingly more niche dating preferences has inspired online dating apps for everyone. From sexual positive to LGBTQ + inclusive, there are so many new dating apps that are challenging societal norms.
But their revolutionary ideas are being overlooked by the exclusive “elite” dating apps of our generation. Lox Club and Raya. With Lox Club flooding our Instagram and TikTok feed with their sponsored posts.
For full disclosure, Raya has recently accepted my application. On what merit? I am still unsure. I am not an influencer or model, but it’s allowed me access to the “other side.” It has also allowed me insight into how my friends react when I share this awkward success.
Some have demanded I recommend them on the app (a way of improving one’s acceptance into the app), but it’s intrigued others as they wait themselves for an acceptance. The friends that show disappointment in their continued wait-listed application are the ones that get my brain buzzing.
What does it say about our society if dating apps are now controlling who can date who by an algorithm that determines if we are cool enough?
Both Raya and Lox Club have created a world of “elite” dating. An exclusive place for beautiful, successful people to meet. But what determines this success and beauty?
Celebrities, models, influencers, and socially deemed cool people rule these apps. It has created a divide in the dating world. Only a few have access to this “elite” group, keeping social outliers at bay.
Is this something for the good? Has it built hysteria with unrealistic expectations and pressure for the dating individual?
Denied access to a dating app has developed a new level of dating rejection. A feeling no one deserves based on an algorithm that has no meaning. This rejection has also made the acceptance into these apps a bragging right. These apps have members we can’t access everywhere. Sure, it holds the dating mecca… celebrities… but other than a couple of million followers, what makes these people better at dating?
Maybe “elite” dating apps are for a niche group of people like the other new dating apps they shadow? If that is so, how do we explain the disheartening disappointment of not being accepted?
I don’t deny using Raya, but I also don’t claim to be any more than my friends and strangers that have yet to be accepted. The reactions from others after hearing of my acceptance are an enigma. A confusing feeling that just makes me think.
Are people being denied a right to a larger dating pool? Are our growing dating options becoming more controlled as they are becoming more accepted?
If you have yet to be accepted into a dating app, please know that you are not any less than the daters that have. A computer can not determine your eligibility for coolness. You have something to offer that no one else has. You.
Dating is what we make it to be. We control the narrative. Not some algorithm.
Looking to get back into online dating? Check out our 5 Tips to Help Get Back on Dating Apps.
