From the Social Media & Digital Tools Module in Year 2 Of CA.
When stepping back and looking back at the state of society today, we can see how many aspects of our lives have now been replaced with technology. Newspapers? Something, a mere twenty years ago, was only attainable by walking to the local corner shop. Now, accessible by a couple clicks on a computer. Food shopping? You no longer have to go through the weekly torture of dragging three toddlers around the local superstore. Just open up an app and click buy on a pre-decided shopping list. We’ve become pretty accustomed to these types of things now, and sure, they are actually useful in day to day life. However, how far is too far?! When the more meaningful things in life - love, emotions, happiness - begin falling into the hands of technology, surely we should be worried… Technology has bought around shortcuts and expelled some of the stress from our lives, but it has also taken away the small things in life. For a lot of millennials, romance is dead and modern dating has killed it.
Although love is one of the most basic human instincts, it’s also one of the most difficult. From this, we’ve seen humans over decades attempt to quantify love and have made it a dying mission to decipher it through the use of algorithms. Online dating has become a $2.7-billion-a-year industry, but the data these companies record aren't particularly successful in creating such a ‘winning algorithm’. It has more so just become a game, an endless goose chase, and in the argument of WNYC’s Note to Self host Manoush Zomorodi, has “destroyed another important aspect of romance: civility and conversation, basic emotional intelligence, eye contact, being able to read someone's body language.”
One dating app however, that seemed to take this information and apply it to their branding strategies for their own benefit is Hinge. In 2016 the dating app, which bases matching off of mutual Facebook friends to find the best match, launched a two-minute animation called The Dating Apocalypse. It was created in partnership with The Studio and Hinge's agency Red Antler, with the inspiration coming from a Vanity Fair article titled Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse. With games and rides such as ‘Catch a Catfish’, ‘The One Nighter’, ‘Hall of Filters’, and ‘the Wheel of Disappointment’, the dystopian horror circus reflects the state of dating in society today. Katie Hunt, Hinge’s chief brand officer, spoke to AdWeek about the video, saying "In reality, people are really lonely and do want a connection with another person and do want to find someone; it's almost been taboo to say that and to go after that.” This is reiterated by the video ending with a link to download the app, and the slogan ‘Escape the games. Find something real’.
Within this messy dating universe we are living in, statistics show what was once seen as a desperate last attempt for lonely singletons to find their soul mate, has now lost all its stigma, with about 1 in 5 relationships nowadays beginning online, and an estimation that 70% of us will have met our significant other online by 2040. Regardless, the internet is flooded with hate letters aimed at these dating sites written by the lonely singletons, detailing everything it is they hate about the apps - the amount of time it consumes, the repeated small talk, being ghosted by someone who seemed to be really into you just one night before, the vulnerability of talking to someone anonymously. In an article titled The Ugly Truth About Online Dating, it refers to “psychologist Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice in action: We want to feel we have some choice, but endless choice can have negative repercussions. Too much choice can make us question ourselves, feel dissatisfied and have unrealistic expectations.” (Barry Schwartz, 2004)
And so, enter Charlie Brooker to investigate the impact of taking away this personal choice. Surprisingly, it wasn't until the fourth season of Black Mirror for him to base an episode on online dating, as it is a topic we typically associate with dread and mystery.. two things the show loves to draw on. The writer revealed the inspiration for the episode in an interview for The Hollywood Reporter, with his prompting question having been "What if there was a service that was a bit like Spotify for dates?”. ‘Hang the DJ’ is Black Mirror’s take
on modern love, focusing on the anxieties shared by society around online dating, making the viewers question the way in which it is heading.
In the dystopian world created in the episode, there is a futuristic dating process called the System, put in place and highly regulated in order to find the perfect life partner for those who sign up and use it. We can see here how the technology in place holds a wealth of power, not just over who the user will meet, but where they will meet, what they will eat on their dates, and most significantly.. how long each partnership will last. The show has made a point to show its viewers like with all good things, it cannot last. We may not like the idea of it, but realistically speaking, everyone, and everything, has an expiration date. So, when we are seeing the System fire up a countdown and watch as Frank and Amy slowly expire, it hits pretty hard to home.
This compatibility algorithm throws Frank and Amy together, and after a really good first date, they ask the system how long they’re set to be together. To the disappointment of them both, a short 12 hours. And so they went on, parting ways and starting to see other people, only to find that none of the following partners are ever quite the same; the lack of emotional connection not being made up by anything physical. This repeated casual sex - not only the sex, but the obligation felt to do so - throughout their string of partners reflects perfectly the universalised ‘hook-up’ culture apps like Tinder has bought about.
The episode follows the couple in their realisation they are meant to be together, despite what the System is enforcing on them. But, of course, it’s no Black Mirror episode without a dark twist. All is revealed in the final scene, where the sweet story turns cynical, and we learn that Frank was right in his theory all along. The System is, indeed, a virtual simulation in which the relationships are tested 1,000 times, matching different digital versions of the couples to see how well they match, and - get this - depending on how many of these times the couple chooses to rebel determines how much of a perfect match they are in the ‘real’ world.
The System plays the role of antagonist, appearing almost as a God with the power over young lovers in the modern world. The old age debate of fate versus free will is scrutinised, with ties to the technological age, sparking the question - will a mathematical approach to love bring about the death of romance?
This isn't actually too far-fetched of an idea in reality, with the way social media applications and dating are heading at the moment. In 2017, Tinder announced their plans for releasing artificial intelligence features which will blur the lines between the physical and digital world, however they were quite secretive in what information they revealed, only saying that they will be “consumer-facing and reliant on user data to personalise app experiences”.
In the apps we are familiar with today - Tinder, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid - users have the power over how they present themselves, choosing photographs and composing witty biographies with just enough information to make themselves seen appealing, but not enough to give an accurate portrayal of the kind of person they are. Interestingly, in an appearance on Good Morning Britain, Brooker talks about this, saying ‘social media is a role playing game where you're playing a heightened version of yourself in order to get points’. Technology has allowed us to create facades of ourselves which we can use to lie, manipulate and exploit because we are too scared to show our real selves. So, even if you were to meet the love of your life from a dating app, is it really ‘real’ if the premises they picked you upon were unrealistic?
In a world where algorithms decide pretty much everything, we - as a society - need to stop being scared! Of what people are going to think of you, of whether or not it’s going to work out. Until then, we have become too accustomed to living through our screens, and will continue down this dark rabbit hole.
References:
Savoie, G. (2018). Have Dating Apps Killed Romance? Experts Debated (and Found the Answer). [online] Available at: https://www.mydomaine.co.uk/effects-of-online-dating [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018]
Anderson, R. |(2016). The Ugly Truth About Online Dating. [online] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-mating-game/201609/the-ugly-truth-about-online-dating [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018]
Strause, J. (2018). 'Black Mirror': Charlie Brooker Reveals Inspiration for "Hang the DJ”. [online] Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/black-mirror-charlie-brooker-reveals-hang-dj-inspiration-1074803 [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018]
Birch, J. (2018). Are Dating Apps Creating Too Many Problems? [online] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/navigating-the-love-gap/201806/are-dating-apps-creating-too-many-problems [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018]
Owen, P. (2017). 'Hang the DJ' Is 'Black Mirror' at Its Most Beautifully Cynical (Commentary) [online] Available at: https://www.thewrap.com/hang-the-dj-is-black-mirror-at-its-most-beautifully-cynical-commentary/ [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018]
Swant, M. (2016). Hinge's Animated Short Film Shows How to Avoid the Dystopian Carnival of Online Dating [online] Available at: https://www.adweek.com/digital/hinges-animated-short-film-shows-how-avoid-dystopian-carnival-online-dating-173986/ [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018]
Sales, N. (2015). Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse [online] Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/08/tinder-hook-up-culture-end-of-dating [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018]