Dating App Shit...

• Grindr kicked things off. Swiping caters to male sexuality. In fact, I think swiping apps are the driving force behind people using the "demisexual" label more and more often. Female sexuality is more holistic and "vibes" based.
• They incentivise blandness. If you're a dude and you're getting no likes, then you'd much rather play it safe (pineapple on pizza, The Office, etc) than alienate people even further by waving your freak flag. This causes everyone to just seem like copies of the same person.
• The algorithms reinforce any "biases" a person might have. We all have types and that's perfectly fine - but every so often don't you really like someone who isn't your usual type? I know it's happened to me. Apps make that sort of thing impossible. They learn your taste and roll with it and just give you more of that forever.
• Related to the point above, apps make those weird and magical "Why do we even like each other?" connections impossible. The sorts of connections that happen organically over time with someone who is your "opposite" in many ways, but somehow the connection marinates and you start enjoying each other's company even when it doesn't make sense. I used to be tight with someone who slept with drug dealers and carried a knife around for protection. On paper, we weren't exactly the most similar people, but we made each other laugh. It was weird. Those sorts of bonds take time and can't happen when you look at a profile for ~10 seconds tops.
• It's just generally weird as fuck that we've allowed The Match Group to have so much control over how the next set of humans get made.
• Apps make it easier to get away with murder. Literally. Your friends and family act like an immune system that can check if a person is good (for you) or not. Apps allow people to bypass all of that, and enable West Elm Calebs, Tinder Swindlers, and even worse to reach their victims without having to go through the "safety checks" of a person's social network. There are people who have commited crimes against those that they met through apps. While it's totally possible that an evil person can dupe your friends and everyone you know into seeing them as a not so evil person, it is without a doubt harder to fool multiple people compared to just fooling one person.