Swiping away: A symptomatic reading of Tinder

Swiping Away: A Symptomatic Reading of Tinder

Jakko Kemper

Student Number: 5745233

Thesis supervisor: Niels van Doorn

New Media and Digital Culture

University of Amsterdam

Table of contents:

1. Introduction ………...………. 3

1.1 Introduction and Thesis Overview ………... 3

1.2 Research Questions ……… 4

2. Setting the Scene ……… 5

2.1 The Connexionist Paradigm ……….. 5

2.2 Social Media and the Culture of Connectivity ………. 9

2.3 The Neoliberalization of Society ………. 14

2.4 Love, Technology and Neoliberalism ………. 19

2.5 The Laws of Cool ……….. 23

3. Methodological Framework ……… 28

3.1 Theoretical Considerations ………. 28

3.2 Case Study Design ………... 31

4. Case Study ……….36

4.1 Interface Analysis ……….36

4.2 Interviews ………..38

4.3 A Theoretical Reading of User Experience of Tinder ………..……50

1. Introduction

1.1 Introduction and Thesis Overview

At the time of writing social discovery application Tinder has more than 1.3 million members in the Netherlands alone – this is roughly eight per cent of the Dutch population, which means that a significant amount of people are familiar with its functionality and features (Elsevier 2014). Meanwhile, we can see the proceeding of several continuous societal, cultural and economic transformations that deem our world increasingly complex. The perpetual circulation of massive bulks of data, a steep incline in the amount of people we encounter in a lifetime, detraditionalization, the expanded ubiquity of networked technologies, and globalization; these are but some of many developments that make our existence a progressively dynamic affair. This thesis seeks to read Tinder in relation these wider societal processes. The argument will be developed that technology is intimately related to how we make sense of the world, how we (affectively) interact with one another, and how we

experience ourselves as subjects. As Tinder is a relatively new phenomenon, it has not yet garnered a lot of academic currency – as its user base suggests, however, it is becoming increasingly culturally relevant and thus warrants serious research. This thesis provides one avenue for making sense of the way that Tinder is integrated into our everyday experience and how that figures into overarching societal

transformations.

After the introduction of the research questions first the theoretical backdrop against which many contemporary developments and phenomena can be traced will be laid out. This will provide a framework that can be put in service both of making sense of wider cultural and economic developments and of the empirical understanding of everyday social reality. Then, I will discuss and justify how I have chosen to design the inquiry into my case study. My finding will then be discussed and related to the literature discussed.

1.2 Research Questions:

1. How can user experience of Tinder be understood as symptomatic of the contemporary nature of capitalism in its neoliberal guise?

2. How can the subjective experiences produced by Tinder be theorized as emblematic of the forms of subjectivity produced by capitalism?

2: Setting the scene

2.1 - The Connexionist Paradigm:

In elucidating the characteristics of today's mode of capitalism, the work of Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello is instrumental. However, as Boltanski and Chiapello actively draw on much of Max Weber's vocabulary and framework, it is worthwhile to first ground their analysis and emphasize some aspects of Weber's thinking, to which I will return later. Even now, over a hundred years after its inception, Max Weber's seminal work on capitalism as a globalizing and rationalizing force remains as relevant as ever. Even though the original spirit of capitalism (described by Weber as contingent on the ascetic values of Protestantism) has undergone a myriad of changes, some of the core concepts devised by Weber still prove capable of being put in service of the empirical understanding of today's social and economic reality. In particular, Weber's conception of the iron cage of rationalization provides an apt point of departure for untangling some of the complex and dynamic phenomena that structure our contemporary world. Weber describes capitalism as a totalizing force that progressively seeks to instil its functional logic in all sectors of society (Weber 154-157). Weber defines this underlying logic as rationality and ideally it would manifest itself in the individual as an internalized compulsion to "increase his capital, which is assumed as an end in itself" (Weber 51). Furthermore, this logic frames work as an "obligation" the individual carries towards "the content of his professional activity" (Weber 54), effectively pressuring the individual to become morally invested in the capitalist mode of production. For Weber the pinnacle of these transitions was embodied in the form of bureaucracy (as an organizational and administrative structure), combining rationalist principles like efficiency, quantification,

predictability, consistency and the substitution of human action for technological automation. By increasingly governing institutions through bureaucratic means, the logic of rationality would come to disperse itself throughout society as a whole, affecting not just the workplace, but all sectors of activity. This is what Weber designates as the iron cage; the process of rationalization is perceived as an

instrument of capture that encroaches upon all spheres of human life. As will become apparent, the structure of the iron cage is too rigid and the category of capture too

contingent on practices of enclosure to faithfully reflect contemporary society. However, as we move on to the work of Boltanski and Chiapello, and later to the diffusion of neoliberal reason, two particular attributes of capitalism explored by Weber still prove germane to its current form. First there is the accelerated rationalization of everyday experience, which entails that the functional logic of capitalism embeds itself in social and cultural practices, reproduces itself as people interact and communicate, and sequentially becomes internalized by the human psyche. It is worth emphasizing here that this functional logic – and the particular form of rationality it produces – is not a stable and discrete entity. Rather, it is a vital force that is able to respond and adapt itself to its surrounding. In the following paragraphs it will become apparent that the capitalist logic that pervades our world is decidedly different from the capitalist logic described by Weber. A second attribute of capitalism - one that is strongly related to this first element - is Weber's conception of capitalism as a force that is not only capable of morally justifying its own logic, but also of framing the exhibition of traits beneficial to its functionality (diligence, the pursuit of capital, competitiveness) as somehow virtuous and worthy of respect.

Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello borrow from Weber the notion of the spirit of capitalism, which designates those dimensions of capitalism that are capable of

morally, culturally and spiritually binding people to its functional logic. In their study, they chart the quintessential characteristics of contemporary capitalism, while paying heed to their overarching thesis that, as capitalism evolves, in order for it to function properly and withstand opposition it needs to legitimate its rationale and its effects. Capitalism is not a cold structure that can be superimposed on an unresisting world. It is a system that needs to be lived out in everyday practices and thus needs to placate some of the tensions and discursive oppositions that this produces. Capitalism also needs to provide incentives for people to freely engage with it and needs to wedge its logic into the cultural and social constellations that make up our lives. In the work of Weber as well as that of Boltanski and Chiapello, capitalism is thus not

conceptualized as an abstract, inhuman and purely rational system, but rather as a force that culturally and discursively embeds itself in our (social, emotional, political) lives. A large part of their argument, for example, is concerned with outlining how the May 1968 protests in France gave way to an ideological reappropriation of the

‘free’ and creative form of capitalism (Boltanski and Chiapello 96-97). I will not delve too deep into their genealogical analysis of capitalism – it suffices here to say that over the years the particular form of capitalism as it was described by Weber (largely reliant on stable structures, industrial modes of labor, clear hierarchies, standardization, and ascetic values) has morphed into a decidedly more complex entity that justifies its functionalities by framing them as open, creative and dynamic (Boltanski and Chiapello 73). Their analysis of this new form of capitalism is

extensive and encompasses a myriad of arguments and theses, but what is most relevant in light of this thesis is their description of contemporary capitalism as an increasingly dynamic assemblage; it is marked by action, ephemerality and change. As will become apparent, this also carries implications for how we live and imagine our lives, and ultimately for how it feels to live in a capitalist society.

These changed attributes of capitalism have reconfigured the qualities an individual needs to acquire and put to use in order to advance within the system; flexibility, manoeuvrability, mobility, the capability to swiftly navigate between projects, demonstrating a proclivity for perpetually improving one's skills - all shaping the contours of what Boltanski and Chiapello call a 'connexionist' society. (Boltanski and Chiapello 345). One of the profound cultural consequences of living in a connexionist society is the socialization of connectivity, or, in the words of Boltanski and

Chiapello, "in a connexionist world, a natural preoccupation of human beings is the desire to connect with others, to make contact, so as not to remain isolated" (Boltanski and Chiapello 111-112). This desire for connectivity is ultimately informed by a fear of missing out on new opportunities – or new projects as Boltanski and Chiapello call them – that can lead towards further self-realization and employability (Boltanski and Chiapello 111) Connexionist societies thus breed new kinds of egoism, as epitomized in the figure of the networker. The networker's flexible relation to time and space "prompt him to derive the maximum personal profit from each operation, without worrying unduly about the consequences for the institution from which he derives his resources" (Boltanski and Chiapello 359). Every interaction thus provides the

individual with the opportunity to "aggrandize his self", particularly through

"expanding and diversifying the universe of things and persons that can be associated with him" (Boltanski and Chiapello 360). The internalization of such a calculating stance towards sociability collapses the traditional divide between affective and

professional relations and recaptures them for a singular outlook that relates all interactions to the pursuit of new projects and the concomitant development of the self (Boltanski and Chiapello 359, 455). This brings me to a final pivotal concept that characterizes our lives today: activity. This too is a quality that exists in a successful networker; “to be doing something (…) - this is what enjoys prestige” (Boltanski and Chiapello 155). We need to forge our own links and proactively seek out our own connections. The new spirit of capitalism, as understood by Boltanski and Chiapello, thus fosters self-motivation and self-governance (Boltanski and Chiapello 76). This rationale ultimately gives rise to cultural, social, and economic environments wherein we are not working for our firm, our boss, our friends, our family – rather, we are working first and foremost for ourselves, and participating in a capitalist system is thus not a matter of compulsion or necessity, but rather a voluntary and self-centered act. It is worth to briefly linger on the particular aesthetic category that is correlate to this connexionist morality. Sianne Ngai describes the aesthetic category with which we typically regard the circulation of information as the ‘zany’. The notion of zaniness obfuscates divisions between labor and play and is described by Ngai as a performance oriented aesthetic (Ngai 182-185). This gives way to a normative perspective wherein ‘activity’ in itself is framed as the most desirable quality in any object of our attention (Ngai 202). The figure of the networker can thus be

contextualized as being intimately related to the concept of zaniness; the value of the networker exists by virtue of his ability to forge links, traverse networks, expand his universe; his ability to, above all, remain active.

2.2 SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE CULTURE OF

CONNECTIVITY:

The connexionist paradigm also offers a fruitful avenue for making sense of those nexuses of connectivity, activity and circulation of our time – social media. Such technologies can be seen as capitalizing on the transformations put in place by the connexionist framework, and simultaneously further exacerbate the cultural desire to stay connected. Even though she never explicitly mentions the works of Boltanski and Chiapello, Jose van Dijck’s ‘The Culture of Connectivity’ delivers a theoretical perspective that is informative in making sense of this condition. A passage from the concluding chapter of her book is especially figurative of how connectivity is

experienced within our culture and is worth quoting at length:

“Even within his own family, Pete felt the pressure of normative values, particularly the values of belonging and being popular. His wife Sandra, for example, was constantly worried about upping her Klout score: to interrupt her social networking activities on various platforms, even for a few days, would result in a substantial decrease of her rating, and this might hurt her business success, she feared. Both teenagers Nick and Zara were unable to resist the pressure of their peers and claimed they had to keep playing CityVille and frequenting Facebook if they wanted to be invited to parties or belong to the ‘cool’ at school. For many of the plugged-in, opting out is not an option: it would mean opting out of sociality altogether, since online activities are completely intertwined with offline social life.”

(Van Dijck 173)

Throughout the entirety of her book, Van Dijck time and again demonstrates how connectivity takes effect not just as a “normative structure underpinning platformed sociality” (Van Dijck 173), but as a normative structure that permeates our entire lives. Van Dijck frequently relates the culture of connectivity this breeds to the rise of so-called Web 2.0 technologies and applications, but I argue this obfuscates an

I am generally apprehensive about using the term Web 2.0, which has become shorthand for a collection of technologies that facilitate connectivity, user-generated content, collaboration and interactivity (Van Dijck 4). It is, however, a term that has garnered significant academic currency and that is drawn upon in many of the

literature on (social) information and communication technologies. For that matter, it is worth briefly addressing its implications here. Social media are often framed as being the direct product of the technological foundation laid out by Web 2.0 technologies, which are then treated as unforeseen inventions that all of a sudden endowed our world with a myriad of new possibilities (see, for example, Kaplan and Haenlein 2010 and Kietzmann et al 2011). What texts like these generally fail to do is properly historicize the taking root of social media as something that has been

gestating in wider cultural, social and economic developments. In this sense the Web 2.0 concept often implies too stark a divide and in foregrounding technological particularities fails to productively engage with the social, political and economic scenes in which such technological applications are rooted. I feel that this severely hampers its explanatory power as a concept. This is also why I want to accentuate here that I would argue that the Web 2.0 phenomenon can not be productively theorized without paying proper attention to how ideas about human interaction and communication have changed over the years. As the work of Boltanski and Chiapello so masterfully conveys, the introduction of particular ideas about connectivity and activity (by the virtue of which social media can exist) into our cultural imaginary is something has been happening from the 1960s onwards, long before the notion of Web 2.0 was even conceived. As we move on to assess how social media have become constitutive of the social fabric, this is something to always bear in mind.

The popularity of social media is often described in terms of critical mass; social media are self-enforcing phenomena of which the performance is entirely dependent on the amount of (active) users; they are supported by the classic adage of ‘crowds draw crowds’ (Lovink and Rasch 15). This is contingent on a fear of missing out or a fear of obsolescence that often impacts on the decision to sign up (Bucher

Programmed Sociality 137). Apart from generalizing a worldview ingrained with the binary opposition of being logged on or of being logged off (which produces new social inequalities and distinctions; see for example Castells 2000) social media also produce a myriad of other forms of subjectivity – for example, not only do they

further communicate the idea of being connected as something that is inherently good, they also frame the circulation of information (i.e. sharing) as a moral act; “good subjects share” (Kennedy 130), effectively reinforcing the connexionist values of connectivity, self-governance and activity. Being plugged-in does not only mean having a Facebook account, it also means actively making use of it.

This culture of connectivity is constantly being reproduced through the governing network logic that inscribes all of these social technologies. Networks have become the diagrammatic abstraction of general interaction - shaping how we meet people, how culture is allowed to circulate, and ultimately constituting a fundamental part of our collective and individual experience of what it means to be a human being in contemporary society. The network form is radically inclusive and is built to

assimilate all heterogeneous elements into its architecture - this leads Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri to conclude that there is "no longer a place that can be recognized as an outside" (Hardt and Negri 211). Here we see Weber's iron cage writ large, albeit in a more fluid, flexible and efficient form; through the workings of the network, encompassing all spheres of modern life, the current mode of rationality is truly capable of being globally distributed. As it moves through networks, it propagates a rationality that stresses connectivity and activity. A somewhat similar argument is developed by Mejias, for whom the network episteme "rationalizes a model of progress and development in which those elements that are outside the network can only acquire currency by becoming part of the network" (Mejias 10). The

naturalization of such a rationale produces some profound social and cultural effects. First, this creates a cultural climate wherein not conceding to the imperative to remain connected at all times can lead to the sensation of being ostracized (Lovink 24-26). Think back here to Boltanski and Chiapello's remarks concerning connectedness as an ostensibly innate desire in contemporary human beings. Second, information has now become the constitutive form of communication. We are constantly compelled to share information, be it through 'tweets', recommendations, 'likes' or through whatever other 'social buttons' the network throws at us - the quantification of which inserts a further competitive dimension into the functionality of many technological

applications (see also Gerlitz and Helmond 2013). This abundance of information can quickly lead to the sensation of being overwhelmed and encourages a perpetual fight to retain visibility amongst all of these flows of information (Mejias 21).

This profusion of information introduces another dimension into the nature of capitalism, namely that of attention. “Attention becomes the new scarce resource which the economic must manage, utilise, exchange, distribute and speculate upon.” (Crogan and Kinsley 18). There is, in other words, only a finite amount of attention we can pay and in a world where we’re progressively submerged in deluges of information, this becomes exponentially more problematic. This produces a need for new means of filtering and keeping track of information flows, apprising to where we need to allocate our attention. This perceived need immediately brings to mind David Berry’s notion of the riparian citizen. Berry argues that as information and

communication technologies become more dynamic, ubiquitous and geared towards real-time transmissions, the nature of our engagement with them alters. As stated, the Internet now effectively breeds entire ecologies of data flows, making it increasingly hard for us to keep track of and extract what is relevant from these inexorable streams of data. This state of affairs breeds a new kind of citizen and a correlate form of subjectivity – a type of citizen that is “continually watching the flow of data, or delegating this ‘watching’ to a technical device or agent to do so on heir behalf” (Berry 144). Berry explains how this riparian citizen enters into an intensified relationship with technology, as he relies on technological applications both for the production and the management of torrents of information. It is important to denote that such technologies are not neutral; rather, they are designed and structured to facilitate or impede particular uses and functionalities, and in that respect can be conceptualized as being endowed with a sense of agency when it comes to determining how we navigate our economy of attention (Bucher A Technicity of Attention 17).

What other subjective experiences are being produced by social media and the

connexionist values they represent and reinforce? Consider for example the following quote by Franco Berardi, who here also explicitly refers to the idea of competition as being deeply embedded in our lives: "If you want to survive you have to be

competitive, and if you want to be competitive you must be connected, receive and process continuously an immense and growing amount of data. This provokes a constant attentive stress, a reduction of the time available for affectivity" (Berardi 44). For Geert Lovink, this means that "every minute of life is converted into "work," or at least being available, a condition of perpetual online presence" (Lovink 14). These

ideas about competition and activity as work are pointing towards another widespread cultural and economic development with its own set of subjectivating effects; the neoliberalization of society.

2.3 THE NEO-LIBERALIZATION OF SOCIETY

The new form of capitalism is also characterized by the naturalization of a neoliberal rationale, that developed alongside many of the developments documented by

Boltanski and Chiapello. Even though they hardly draw on the term, facets of their work still come very close to describing neoliberal forms of reason – their figure of the networker, for example, bears many resemblances to the neoliberal figure of the entrepreneurial man. But here we are getting ahead of the argument; allow me to first provide a brief sketch of what neoliberalism actually is. Theorizing neoliberalism is laborious and in itself warrants more than a book length’s worth of research, as it is an amorphous concept that resists clear definition. It can best be understood as an

assemblage of “epistemic commitments” (Mirowski 417); it is a particular form of reason, comprising ideas and beliefs about how societies should be organized and governed, about how markets should function, about how work and labor are defined and even about how the human mind functions. Crucially, neoliberalism is in practice always informed by the question of how the market is “to be made the principle of the government of human beings and self-government alike" (Dardot and Laval 18). It does not seek the answer to this question in doctrines that propagate an attitude of laissez-faire as it is firmly rooted in the belief that the optimal conditions for market-based exchange do not come about naturally (Mirowski 434-435). Here it is also worth noting that neoliberalism wedges the idea of the market from it economic connotations, as the concept of the market is understood as something that is wholly natural and exists in all sectors of life – thus, strands of neoliberal thought can also be found in the natural sciences (Mirowski 436). Fundamentally, such markets are no longer defined by exchange, but rather by the notion of competition (Dardot and Laval 83). Markets are not conceptualized as fixed environments, but rather as processes of adaptation and attunement wherein subjects are constantly adjusting themselves to one another (which for example ties in with scientific narratives of evolution). This also informs the neoliberal conceptualization of what it means to be free. A free society is envisioned as a society wherein autonomous actors (be they individuals, businesses or entire corporations), all driven by self-interest, are freely allowed to engage in market-based exchange (Mirowski 437). In the neoliberal rationale, this makes for a dynamic between the market and the state that can best be understood as a double circuit (Foucault 84); the state is to give shape to an economy

that is made to function as a global arena of competition, and this economy in turn should legitimize the framework set out by the state.

This marks the birth of the entrepreneurial man, who constantly attunes and re-attunes himself to his surroundings. As Ludwig von Mises describes, speculation is

indigenous to the entrepreneurial man: "the entrepreneur is always a speculator. He deals with the uncertain conditions of the future. His success of failure depends on the correctness of his anticipation of uncertain events" (Von Mises 290). Alongside the reconfiguration of what it means to be free, this also entails a recapturing of the relationship between work and the self, and the very definition of work and labor. Whereas traditionally work is understood as the selling of one’s productive capacities to one’s boss, in a neoliberal society one works for oneself; you work for a company just as much as it works for you (Dardot and Laval 260).. We must all become self-driven enterprises that are in constant competition with one another, effectively dissipating traditional communal forms like class solidarity.

To optimally enable competition, neoliberalism seeks to introduce the logic of the market to all spheres of life (which it believes to be the natural order); fundamentally, this is underpinned by the inclination to quantify all forms of capital, all relations and all activities. This also involves the perpetual valorization of oneself in relation to one's surroundings (Dardot and Laval 267). As Dardot and Laval signal, the state has been decisive in this neo-liberalization of society as a "voluntary co-producer of norms of competitiveness" (Dardot and Laval 15). For the neoliberal subject, to whom I shall turn now, competition thus becomes the "cardinal principle of social and

individual existence" (Dardot and Laval 47). Now what kind of subjectivity is enabled by the neoliberal rationale? Fundamentally, "the conception of society as an enterprise made up of enterprises comprises a new subjective norm" (Dardot and Laval 255). The neoliberal subject is made to be an enterprise that works for itself; there can be no alienation or discrepancy between the individual and the company, as the drives and desires of greater enterprises are perceived to be in line with one's own desires. The neoliberal subject thus remains affected by Weber's iron cage of rationality meaning that he takes a calculating and economically determined stance towards his

“The exercises that are supposed to bring about an improvement in the subject's conduct aim to make of the individual a 'microcosm' in perfect harmony with the universe of the enterprise and, over and above that, with the 'macrocosm' of the global market. Ultimately, it is a question of creating a situation where the general norm of efficiency that applies to the enterprise as a whole is relayed to individuals, by putting their subjectivity to work to enhance their performance.”

(Dardot and Laval 273)

In other words, the all-enveloping logic of the market is internalized in the behavior of the individual subject (and in the behavior of all enterprises alike). In sum, the neoliberal subject is figured as an enterprise that, like the enterprises of firms and corporations, derives meaning from working on oneself and from constantly

speculating on how its (competitive) relations with other enterprises will positively or negatively affect it. It is a form of subjectivity that is characterized by speculation, competition, rationality and entrepreneurship, and that is lived out through the connexionist networked environments (emphasizing visibility and connectivity) of capitalism. It serves to conclude by stressing that a neoliberal society is not an atomistic society; ideally, the neoliberal subject is capable of capitalizing on his relationship with other subjects and harbors a flexible and dynamic attitude towards ever-changing life conditions affected by economic fluctuations and new

technologies.

It's imperative to denote here that this subject is furthermore typified by many emotional and affective ambiguities and, fundamentally, is always marked by the incessant experience of uncertainty. This uncertainty, often theorized as precarity, is multi-layered and affectively experienced on a number of levels. Lauren Berlant, in a digital roundtable organized by Jasbir Puar, succinctly disentangles these different affective dimensions (Puar 2011). It is an existential condition, as life by definition is uncertain and finite. It is also an economic condition, because not only is working in a neoliberal society a wholly uncertain affair (as capitalism feeds off inconstancy and change), it is also taxing on the mind and body in a variety of ways, for example through the constant attentive stress that comes with the need of being attuned to

one’s surroundings. Also, there is the precarious sense of disillusionment with the increased privatization of wealth. Finally, it is a mode of feeling that produces a sense of desperation as the result of increasingly having to live life without structural and institutionalized guarantees. One of the developments that further produces such experiences of precarity is the increased demand of being logged on and available at all times both in- and outside of the workplace, and the subsequent staging of all areas of life as sites for production. This is exacerbated by the existence of technologies (smart phones, tablets) with which one figuratively carries one’s work and social life with oneself all the time (see, for example, Middleton 2007). As an emotional correlate, this is likely to install in the individual a disposition characterized by Melissa Gregg as an inability to "view (…) time and space as free from unproductive activities" (Gregg 144). This coaxes the neoliberal subject into a constant state of restlessness. Moreover, this neoliberal subject is also constantly emboldened to valorize situations and transactions in terms of means-end optimization, and above all to stay active and visible. As we have seen, this is further supported by the advent of social media (and their credo of remaining plugged-in), and the new interactional modalities and venues for sociability they provide. The use of social media, says Gregg, invites the individual to imagine communities that exist beyond the configuration of one’s direct circle of acquaintances. Social media can thus for example broaden the "limited avenues for intimacy available to busy professionals" (Gregg 100). However, imagining these new communal bodies also brings with it new forms of uncertainty, as the neoliberalism rationale requires that one is perpetually paying heed to one’s relation to one’s surroundings. Moreover, the conditions of existence have been further unsettled, meaning we increasingly need to live our lives without the comfort of institutionalized bearings like communal traditions and class-based forms of solidarity. Neoliberalism instead naturalizes cultural and social practices that are essentially informed by an economic rationality. Again, all of this introduces a fundamental sense of precarity that saturates the entirety of our lived experience. "Precariousness is not a particular element of the social relation, but the dark core of the capitalist production in the sphere of the global network where a flow of fragmented recombinant info-labor continuously circulates" (Berardi 191). This further reinforces the process of neoliberal subjectivation, as this bolstered sensation of precariousness douses every (cultural, professional, social) transaction in

uncertainty, inviting "economic competition and profitability" (Berardi 190) into the heart of our interactions.

Before proceeding, allow me to briefly riff on the relationship between neoliberalism and social media; or rather, how the subjective experience produced by the general social media logic is in some ways similar to neoliberal subjectivity. This is also where I want to account for the fact that so far concepts like work and labor have been objects of attention throughout my narrative. This is because neoliberalism affects all spheres of life through (discursively and spiritually) inculcating a rationality of self-government and self-interest wherein social life too becomes suffused with a logic of competition, attention and perpetual work. Social media and the culture of

connectivity at large extend a logic wherein “market-based principles are used to judge successful social behavior in oneself and others” (Marwick 12). Social media thus become technologies of subjectivity that emphasize the ability to compete for attention and visibility, that encourage permanent availability and self-branding, and that culminate in a form of subjectivity that adheres to the neoliberal norms and values (Marwick 11-12). In the following paragraphs I will elucidate how love and intimacy figure into this amalgamation of connective technologies and neoliberalism.

2.4 LOVE, TECHNOLOGY AND NEOLIBERALISM:

Relating these observations to matters of love, intimacy and emotion, the work of Melissa Gregg again is informative. Charting the relationship between intimacy and technology, two of her findings are particularly worth discussing here. First, there is the rise of what I will call 'technological emotionalism' alongside the already existing concept of 'technological rationalism' (the rationalization of the use of technology as something that is naturally acquired by the individual) (see, for example, Liu 2004). Gregg describes how technological applications such as e-mail and social media (further corroborated by the connexionist imperative to stay connected) serve as "attention-seeking" machines, fighting for our affection with the rest of our social circle (Gregg 136). Furthermore, even our traditionally private moments (spending time with one's family) are now often mediated by the presence of technology (Gregg 126). Ultimately, as Gregg illustrates throughout her book, intimacy and affectivity are now altogether seldom experienced without some form of technology being present. If we want to stay fully connected, relying on social networking technologies to mediate communication is almost imperative. We also often rely on technologies for stimulation (e.g. viewing internet pornography). And even when we sleep we often do so in attendance of technology (many of the interviewees in Gregg's study sleep with their phone right next to them). This is what I understand as technological emotionalism: the capacity of technology not only to bind us to its existence on a rational level, but the capacity to also insert themselves in our emotional and affective lives and subsequently to prompt us to rely on them in our experience of sociality and intimacy. This also harkens back to the work of Bucher, who argues there is a

technicity of emotions ingrained in social media, capable of technically governing the emotions that rise from our engagement with such technologies (e.g. Bucher

Programmed Sociality 93).

But perhaps even more pressing is Gregg's analysis of how the definition of love has fluctuated to align with the vocabulary of (professional) work (Gregg 169-171). Gregg builds upon genealogies that chart how, through the management of affect and emotion, capitalism manufactures the types of individuals it needs to function (c.f. Liu 2004). Her work further outlines to include such developments as the increased

management that persuade the individual to at all time communicate a disposition of responsibility and flexibility (Gregg 11-12, Boltanski and Chiapello 79). Through institutional rhetoric, love is primarily configured as a means of attaining such a disposition; if you love what you do, then you will surely radiate responsibility, ensuring future employability and an energized engagement with the rootless suspense of flexible work (Gregg 169). This gives way to a curious re-imagining of what notions of love entails, conceivably leading to a vision of love wherein friends and lovers increasingly figure as secondary and often temporal conduits of affect and intimacy (Gregg 173-174). However, as the distinctions between the self, the firm and the corporation become cloudy and we are invited to yield to the singular form of the enterprise, portraying the individual and his work as two distinct units of analysis may not be quite right. Think back here to Dardot and Laval's conception of the neoliberal subject as a microcosm that operates in consonance with the all-encompassing

macrocosm of the market (Dardot and Laval 273), turning the individual into an enterprise amongst a nebula of other enterprises. This is of course not to suggest that love and affectivity cannot exist in a neoliberal society, but rather that the processes of neoliberal subjectivation sever these concepts from any romantic tradition and rearrange them to comply with the neoliberal logic of competition and speculation. Perhaps the great love story of a neoliberal society is thus not to be understood as the exemplary romantic connection between individuals (now redefined as enterprises), but rather needs to be aligned with the contemporary hyper-accelerated circulation of information and attention.

The work of Eva Illouz can be usefully contrasted with the work of Gregg and the notion of neoliberalism. In the context of this thesis, her most productive line of thought to be traced concerns her conceptualization of capitalism as incorporating both economic and emotional spheres. Such an approach negates popular readings of capitalism as an abstract rather than a social system, demonstrating how the

management and circulation of emotion and affect are at the heart of its operation. Illouz charts the characteristics of contemporary modes of work, with a pronounced emphasis on the role of emotions. Illouz signals that corporate culture is informed by a model of communication that forestalls affective and emotional excesses in favor of a set of communicative protocols that prescribe the "suspension of one's emotional entanglements in a social relationship" (Illouz 38). Also, interestingly enough, even

though she never explicitly labels her observations in terms of neoliberal reason, many of the capitalist tendencies Illouz addresses bear more than a striking resemblance to the cultural logic of neoliberalism. The core of Illouz' argument is that, primarily through the pervasion of the language of therapy, emotionality came to play a significant role in the economic climate (Illouz 36). For Illouz, this marks a situation wherein "market-based cultural repertoires shape and inform interpersonal and emotional relationships, while interpersonal relationships are at the epicenter of economic relationships" (Illouz 5). Such an intermeshing of the economic and the emotional, in other words, is ultimately governed by processes of rationalization that propagate the logic of the market as the vernacular denominator in relation to which all our feelings must be measured and evaluated (Illouz 5, 31-32). Said processes entail "the control of emotions, the clarification of one's values and goals, the use of the technique of calculation, and the decontextualization and objectification of emotions" (Illouz 34); in the end, in consonance with the logic of neoliberalism, everything must be analyzed in terms of costs and benefits and thus needs to be made quantifiable (Illouz 65). Another development discussed by Illouz that brings to mind neoliberalism is the naturalization of narratives of self-help and self-realization (Illouz 43). Such narratives have served to internalize a preoccupation with the self as not only natural, but also desirable. And this desire to adamantly invest in the self is, of course, what characterizes the neoliberal subject. Furthermore, Illouz attempts to analyze the role that technologies (and the Internet in particular) play in how love and affect are experienced. She argues that through configuring spheres of sociability as marketplaces wherein the self becomes a commodity that needs to be pitched and sold, the search for love and intimacy is reframed in the form of economic

transactions. Also, rather than facilitating the traditional "ideology of spontaneity" (Illouz 90) and irrationality that marked the 20th-century notion of love,

contemporary dating technologies capture the notion of love and sell it as something that can be rationalized and valued, and fought over in digital arenas of “intense competition” (Illouz 82, 88-90). Momentarily we will arrive at our my study and assess wheter or not all of these claims are true to user experience of Tinder, but first there is one last subject that we need to attend to; information. Not only is (the circulation of) information the basic engine of our culture of connectivity and

economy of attention, it is also pertinent to consider that the profiles we encounter on social media platforms come to us as pure information. An assessment of how we go

about transmitting a sense of personality within this information economy of these matters is in order.

2.5 THE LAWS OF COOL:

In order to make sense of our relationship with information, the following paragraphs will draw heavily on the work of Alan Liu and. Let me begin by briefly mapping out the most relevant aspects of Liu’s work. Most cogent in light of this thesis is Liu's theorization of capitalism as a liquid force that, through the enactment of what he describes as a global corporate culture, not only has worn away the cubicle and has replaced it with the form of the team, but also erodes the office walls, allowing it to spread out into our streets, schools, houses and bedrooms. In this sense, his argument is similar to that of Melissa Gregg, as they both pertain to how the distinctions between previously separate spheres of life have evaporated. Liu's argument is thus not only about particular modes of labor and their congruent modes of emotional experience, but ultimately about what it means to feel, love, associate and live in a networked society.

Crucially, Liu's book entails not only a genealogical account of the move from industrial work to the networked and globalized corporation, but also an inquiry into the forms of affect and emotional release that accompany these changes. At the heart of his analysis lies the observation that over the course of the 20th century "the entire province of the private/familial was marginalized by the great modern, impersonal organizations that stepped into the breach of customary sociality to commandeer the rules of feeling" (Liu 89). Liu proceeds to masterfully demonstrate how the emotions that we experience, the particular ways in which we can vent these emotions, and the way we form affective bonds are part and parcel of the dominant mode of production, its rationale, and the technologies that support it.

Liu begins by describing the rise of knowledge work (alongside the rise of service work, which we will turn to shortly), which inaugurated "a complete system of emotional labor management that disallowed workers any "productive" emotion at all" (Liu 94), producing a tension that gave way to a dichotomous experience of "weekday anaesthesia and weekend hyperaesthesia" (Liu 99). This anaesthesia was further supported by new ways of organizing labor, the pinnacle of which was the instalment of the cubicle. The claustrophobic walls of the cubicle prevented social interaction and rather allowed the worker only to be intimate with the spreadsheets

and databases on the computer in front of him (for an inquiry into the emotional stress induced by this development see, for example, Zuboff 1988). The aforementioned hyperaesthesia manifested itself primarily through the workers' consumption of sub- and countercultural products and images, allowing them to vicariously experience emotional tinctures blacked out by the impersonal reality of everyday work. Liu is also quick to assert, however, that here we can see how convoluted distinctions between work/leisure, and different cultural spheres have become, and how the energized and affective engagement with such spheres still generally buys into an overarching logic of technological rationality (Liu 100-101, 134-135).

Simultaneously, in the field of service work, a further dimension of performance and affectivity was inserted into the experience of labor (Liu 119). Service industry jobs required of the worker a form of affective labor; positive and reinforcing emotions had to be displayed towards the customer at all times (even when these did not match with one's own emotions). Ideally, through accustoming employees to the principle of 'deep acting', this affective labor would root itself so thoroughly in the body of the worker, that eventually the demands posed by service work would be experienced as one's own innate desires. In practice, however, the structural and wilful manipulation of one's own displays of affect proved to be strenuous and often irreconcilable with one's own beliefs and desires (for studies of emotional labor management and its often taxing consequences for mental wellbeing see, for example, Hochschild 1983, Sutton and Rafaeli 1987, De Swaan 1981, Leidner 1993).

But the most poignant "paradox of feeling" (Liu 118) that emerged from these conditions presented itself in those jobs that combined aspects of knowledge and service work. Here, the worker was prompted to incorporate the affective logic of both modes of work and thus oscillate between two entirely different emotional registers (Liu 123-124) - a bank employee could one moment be expected to cordially ask a customer for their account details, and the next moment to enter this data into a text processor in a stoic fashion. This is also what Liu understands as corporate culture; "corporate culture caught up both the encubicled data processor and the front-office people processor" and diluted their contradictions through submerging them in "the same, collective rehearsal of a single culture of informed service" (Liu 124). Culture, in this sense, is also figured as an emotional adhesive that seeks to justify,

assuage and manage the affective discordances that arise from the conditions of work, ultimately aiming to internalize them in the worker's body as not being discordances at all. What is relevant about all this is that here we can begin to see the formation of a persona that above all needs to be (emotionally, affectively, competently) flexible. A persona, in other words, that is fit to cope with the accelerated uncertainty endemic to the rise of both knowledge and service industries. As the formation of this figure is initiated and influenced by the economic climate, its technological foundation and the diffusion of corporate culture, this figure has a dynamic and ambiguous relation to these matters. This is what will eventually inform the contemporary subject’s relation to information and this also brings us to the final stage of Liu's genealogy; the

networking phase.

For Liu, corporate culture has now been inducted "as the stage of general culture, as the new model of general sociality, interaction and communication" (Liu 172). The transitions discussed in the previous paragraphs may have been marked by a

proliferation of technological appliances and new interactional modalities, but these were still given form in a structured and systematic way. With the accelerated implementation of networked technologies, corporations increasingly opened

themselves up, breeding a climate wherein 'connectedness' rather than 'system' served as the organizational paradigm. This networked condition also gave way to yet another ambiguous palette of feelings along with its own mode of emotional discharge. Liu situates a number of developments that shape our subjective and affective experience of the networking phase (including but not limited to the

dispersive nature of the contemporary corporation, its reliance on continuous flows of information and the introduction of technologies that simultaneously facilitate use for professional and for entertainment purposes). Such factors play together to form a paradoxical modus operandi that affords individuals a sense of autonomy or freedom, yet at the same time constrains and coordinates their actions. On an office computer, one may simultaneously be checking work-related mail, browsing through a dating service like Tinder and having a private conversation through a social networking site. One inhabits, as it were, a plethora of scenes that each tap into different emotional states (the professional, the romantic, the empathic, et cetera) yet at the same time all of these are gathered under the same "underlying operating system and networking choices” (Liu 172). In the networked phase, in other words, our engagement with

technology is at once radically inclusive and universally standardized. This universal standardization and the implication this carries for our engagement with technology is best exemplified by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker’s concept of protocol. Protocol is Galloway and Thacker's answer to the question of how control can still exist after the decentralization of virtually all organizational structures we encounter today. The range of capabilities of protocol is such that it is both able to expedite the inclusive and flexible nature of the network, but at the same time is also capable of disseminating a means of exerting influence over the topology and functionality of the very same network; "Protocol is twofold; it is both an apparatus that facilitates

networks and a logic that governs how things are done within that apparatus" (Galloway and Thacker 29). What is important here is to realize that in this manner technological applications can determine how and under what conditions

communication can take place and thus play a pivotal part in shaping how sociality within networked environments comes about and is experienced (cf. Bucher).

So what about these observations is so relevant to the case at hand? Pertinently, for Liu, all of these developments together give shape to new cultural repertoires that can be instrumental in making sense of the role that technology plays in our world. First, the networked phase has given way to new conversational preferences. As Liu argues, there is an emphasis on and need for technologies that emphasize the practices of browsing and chatting, designated by him as quintessential for our times (Liu 146-147). This is because chatting and browsing (captured here as efficient activities that require relatively little attention) are means of strategically and proficiently

navigating the torrents of information our network society produces. Furthermore, there now exists a “cultural metaform” of conduct (Liu 168) that emphasizes user friendliness (Liu 168). Technologies, in other words, above all need to be easy to use. But what is most relevant about Liu’s work is his conceptualization of the ethos of cool.

Cool is understood by Liu as an aesthetic category, a cultural sensibility, a form of political agency, and an agent of differentiation -- symbiotically, these form an ethos that is simultaneously of and against information (Liu 179, 181, 185). It

is of information in the sense that it is endemic to it. This is because information technologies enfold both sites of leisure and sites of labor -- a condition that has been

already been discussed in the preceding paragraphs (Liu 173). As a result,

contemporary cool is an attitude towards information, or rather, a (dis)position one claims in the field of information. What Liu's thesis ultimately boils down to is the question of how people living in a networked age (or, in Liu's own terms, "an era when all our techniques are bonded to all our technologies" (Liu 172) are able to imagine their lives and actions as something more than purely 'informatic' elements that are to be invariably included in the network. The answer lies in the

conceptualization of cool as an ethos against information. It can be said that in Liu's analysis information is conceived as the nexus around which all social, cultural and economic relations converge to fold into one another. Cool, in practice, can

temporarily unfold this enclosure, allowing the individual to gaze beyond the grid of information and envision themselves as transcending the 'life' of knowledge work (Liu 184). Cool, in sum, introduces into the consciousness of the contemporary individual an imaginary order that at the very least provides the illusion of the possibility of "alternative lives of knowledge" (Liu 184). Concretely, objects or platforms that are cool are suggestive of means of engaging with information that take place on different terms than those of corporate culture. To frame this differently; the ethos of cool offers a wide repertoire of potential forms of strategic resistance to the totalizing nature of corporate culture; or, in other words, it instils in us the capability of, amidst all of these technologies, transmitting a sense of uniqueness and

3. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK:

3.1 Theoretical Considerations

The methodological framework of this thesis is largely informed by subscribing to a social constructionist perspective. What I mean by this is that I interpret social reality as the provisional result of processes of social interaction and meaning-making (Ritzer 649). Reality, in other words, is a dynamic affair that is constantly being reproduced, reinforced or altered through social practices. The empirical data set amassed in service of analysing my case study is thus predominantly focused on social and interpersonal dimensions. Before delving deeper into these matters, however, I wish to stress that the framework employed here diverges from more traditional social constructionist frameworks in at least two regards.

First, I have chosen to follow Anthony Giddens in approaching the classic divide between (human) agency and structure not as a dualism, but rather as a duality (Giddens xx). Concretely, this means that, while emphasizing everyday social interactions, I have been sensitive to wider cultural and economic developments and in the remainder of the thesis will repeatedly argue that these are capable of

influencing human actions and of internalizing (parts of) their logic in the human body. These processes of internalization, however, come about as the result of human interaction and the collective and/or individual enactment of culture. Here I also subscribe to Giddens’ belief that human beings are capable and knowledgeable actors that do not passively submit themselves to structural conditions – rather, they need incentives to engage with such conditions, and are capable of informing oppositional discourses. We have already seen such a model at work in the previous section with the diffusion of the new capitalist spirit; capitalism is understood here not as a

structural condition that simply imposes itself on us, but rather as a flexible force that changes over the years and that can not exist independently of human interaction and agency (one could even, for example, rightfully argue that human agency in the guise of activity forms an essential part of the way that capitalism now functions).

This thesis has also been attentive of the material conditions of communication and information technologies and thus makes extensive use of (new) media theory. Technologies are not empty vessels that neutrally carry information. Rather, as (new) media technologies and the particular modalities of sociality they make possible insert themselves into our everyday lives, they are also capable of transforming cultural and normative discourses and even how we directly relate to one another. Beer’s concept of the ‘technological unconscious’ is informative when considering the role of

technology in contemporary forms of sociality (Beer 990). With this concept Beer not only gets at the fact that many of the social and cultural environments we encounter daily are dictated to us by databases and algorithms, but also argues that such phenomena actually become constitutive of the entire social fabric. Much of our social activities are enacted in digital and reticular spaces that rely on computational processes to function. As these databases and algorithms become integrated into our everyday lives and increasingly structure the conditions for interaction they literally become a part of us and our cultural imaginary. Any constructionist perspective that wants to do justice to the complex and multifaceted nature of vernacular social activity needs to take into account the media technologies through which many of these interactions take place.

Taina Bucher, taking cues from both software studies and actor network theory, delivers a useful framework for making sense of how the technological properties of social platforms factor into the nature of social activity on those platforms. Even though this thesis de-emphasizes the study of Tinder in terms of its technological foundation in favour of finding out how people actually use it and integrate it into their lives, I am still interested in seeing what norms and values Tinder as a

technological platform is suggestive of and how this is subjectively experienced by its users. Tinder is structured in a particular way and with a particular use in mind, and this needs to be taken into account if we want to understand how and why people engage with it. I thus follow Bucher in her assertion that we can not understand social media as blank slates onto which pre-existing forms of sociality can be freely

transposed, but rather that we need to be attentive of the particular types of sociality that any social networking technology encourages or thwarts (Bucher Programmed Sociality 137). In the following chapter I will outline my case study design, taking

cues from social constructionism in devising my interview approach and taking cues from Bucher’s dissertation in analysing Tinder as a platform.

3.2 CASE STUDY DESIGN:

A short introduction to Tinder:

Tinder is an application developed by InterActiveCorp that facilitates interaction between mutually interested parties. One of the most fascinating aspects of Tinder and a productive point of departure for making sense of its use is the tagline frequently employed by the company to communicate the application’s appeal to the public – “Tinder is how people meet. It's like real life, but better” (Tinder on Twitter 2014). On Tinder’s website, this statement is further elaborated on by explaining the company’s mission: “Tinder's vision is to eliminate the barriers involved in making new connections and strengthening existing ones. We believe in fun and familiar experiences that are designed to emulate and advance real world interactions.” (Tinder 2014). From this quote, it would seem that Tinder is an application that facilitates a wide array of different forms and degrees of sociality. However, even the briefest of glances at the deluge of user reviews, and (popular) articles written about Tinder purveys the sense that physical desires are at the heart of interaction on Tinder – Tinder is generally portrayed as a service that caters to those in search of flirtation, dating, lust, affection and even romance (Mulshine 2014, Rubin 2013, Cole 2013). From such texts, it also becomes apparent how exactly Tinder is experienced as being ‘better than real life’, as to a large extent Tinder alleviates the (physical) rejection, social anxiety and self-consciousness that often come with physically flirting and looking for sex (Zeilinger 2013). But even though Tinder is often framed as a hotbed of lust and one-night-stands (e.g. Cole 2013, Mulshine 2014), according to founder and CEO Sean Radd the “unwritten context” of Tinder actually revolves around romantic relationships (Ha 2013). In the same article, Radd goes on to state that ultimately Tinder strives to “overcome every single problem you have when it comes to making a new relationship.” (Ha 2013) – here, again, we see links to the rhetoric of Tinder being ‘better than real life’. But this opacity as to what kind of service Tinder

actuallyhas people everywhere (and advertising companies in particular) struggling

to make sense of what Tinder actually is; a dating service, a social network or a

hybrid idiosyncrasy? (Summers 2014). As for now, Tinder employs no ostensible

business model, although there have been some strategic alliances (Summers 2014). In the following paragraphs I will methodologically outline how I have gone about further analysing Tinder.

Analysing Tinder as a platform:

The bulk of this thesis is composed of qualitative interviews and their analysis, but I will start off with an assessment of Tinder’s functionality and features, paying particular attention to what types of use its interface and the underlying algorithms afford. In analyzing a platform, it is imperative to keep in mind that alterations are frequently made to its architecture, layout, functionality and interface (Bucher Programmed Sociality 74). These mutations are not uncommonly the result of criticisms staged from the user community (or at least communicated as being so) (see, for example, Stumpel 2010). This is why I want to be very clear that the particular version of Tinder examined here (downloaded on February 28th 2014) is only one in what will presumably be a long list of revisions and updates, and the findings in this thesis can thus not be assumed to apply to all versions of Tinder. The latest version of Tinder, for example, includes the possibility to share photographs (called ‘moments’) with your list of matches – an interesting feature, but one that is occluded from my analysis.

The black-boxed nature of Tinder means that direct access to the codes and algorithms that for example determine the profiles that one is shown is prohibited. Supplementing an analysis of the interface of Tinder with the results of my interviews has, however, shed some light on the way that these algorithms shape sociality on Tinder. In attending to Tinder’s interface, I have also taken into account the normative dimensions that underlie it – what types of sociality, in other words, are encouraged or discouraged by Tinder? I argue that an intimate knowledge of how the back-end of the application functions is not necessary for this thesis, as I am primarily interested in how the users themselves construct and experience Tinder.

Analysing Tinder through user interviews:

As stated, in this thesis I am primarily concerned with how people have integrated Tinder into their everyday lives, how they subjectively experience their use of Tinder, and how this can be read in relation to on-going cultural and economic

transformations. In order to provide an exhaustive answer to these questions, a discussion of Tinder’s functionality is in order. But arguably even more pertinent is allowing these users to speak for themselves. This is why I have chosen to build the

majority of my research around a number of in-depth interviews. In conducting the interviews, I have chosen to adopt a relatively unstructured and qualitative approach, as I was primarily interested in allowing my respondents to talk freely and

associatively. Qualitative and unstructured modes of interviewing can cover a wide array of topics, are manifest with a sense of improvisation and are predominantly concerned with charting the experiences of the interviewee as faithfully as possible – this, for example, entails encouraging “rambling” and “going off at tangents” in order to foreground what the interviewees experience as relevant and important (Bryman 320). My chief concern here was endowing the interviewees with a substantial amount of leeway in articulating their replies. In order to ensure this, I went into all interviews with only a list of five topics that I wanted to cover with the participants (detailed below). Moreover, adopting such a relatively unstructured approach allowed me to flexibly and instantly pursue or abandon avenues that seemed either fruitful or unproductive. The decision to conduct these interviews on a one-on-one basis was mostly informed by the observation that Tinder at least potentially relates to culturally sensitive matters like lust and intimacy. As such, minimalizing group dynamics and concomitant forms of social pressure within the environment of the interview was key.

Through selecting interviewees with whom I was already acquainted on a colloquial basis I sought to further ensure that responses to the interviews would be as valid and detailed as possible. As a measure of maintaining some critical distance I decided not to include too close friends in my group of respondents – Tinder is a regular topic of conversation amongst my closer circles of friends and I feel like this intimate

knowledge of their experiences with Tinder might have led to some degree of bias in conducting interviews. Rather, I chose to approach people with whom I was

colloquially acquainted and whom I knew intermittently used Tinder, but with whom I had never had any serious conversation on the subject. I initially set out to conduct ten individual interviews, but partially due to time constraints and partially due to the fact that at a couple interviews I started to feel that there was already such a

consonance in the responses that further research was not probable to lead to new insights, I ended up conducting and using five interviews. Upon contacting these people, I immediately made explicit that during the interviews sensitive issues might come up and that if they did not feel comfortable talking about these matters, they

should not agree to cooperate. All of them indicated that this was fine, however, so I encountered no problems there. I also made sure that everyone was using the same version of Tinder as I was. Some of my respondents were fine with using their full name, but others indicated that they would rather not have their full names displayed (interestingly enough, specifically those who indicated that they had had sexual relations through use of Tinder; this already speaks volumes of the delicate nature of the application). For the sake of privacy and for the sake of readability, using initials was agreed upon by all parties. My group of participants consisted of the following people (listed here with their gender, age, sexual orientation, and their education and/or current occupation):

MW (male; 26 – living in Amsterdam. Heterosexual. Studying media & culture, currently unemployed);

TD (female; 23 – living in Amsterdam. Heterosexual. Studying graphic design, and occasionally working as a promoter for an art gallery);

AL (female; 21 – living in Amsterdam. Heterosexual. Studying communication studies and working as a saleswoman in a botanical shop);

MvdW (male; 26 – living in Utrecht. Heterosexual. Currently unemployed, has a degree in film, media & theatre studies);

NE (female; 20 – living in Utrecht. Bisexual. Studying social pedagogy and working as a bartender)

All of the interviews were conducted either at the home of the participant (I felt this was most likely to get respondents into a comfortable and open headspace; see also Bryman 320-321) or at my own home. As stated, in order to optimally cultivate deliberative and conversational modes of communication, I only had with me a brief list of topics, which could also serve as a prompt to myself to advance the

conversation. For the most part, the interviews developed organically and respondents generally already started to address topics without me having to ask them about them. For the sake of completion, here is the list of topics (phrased in the form of questions) that I intended to potentially discuss with my participants, even though in the end I hardly had to rely to them;

- What is it that you think makes Tinder so popular? - How would you describe your use of Tinder?

- What is the nature of the conversations you carry out on Tinder? - What role does sexuality play in your use of Tinder?

This list of topics was devised with the objective of attaining a complete picture of how people connect with Tinder, and how they experience their activity on it

(detailing why they started to use the app, what they expected from it, how they ended up using it – could their use of Tinder be likened more how one would generally use a social networking site or a dating service? – and what kinds of sensations the

dialogues they held on Tinder produced). Their experiences could then be productively framed through the theoretical lens I employ throughout this thesis; where does user experience of Tinder fall in line with larger cultural and economic phenomena, and where does it complicate these matters? I had asked all my

respondents to already start reflecting a bit on their use of Tinder beforehand, so for the most part the answers they produced to my question proved extensive and thoughtful. I thankfully encountered very little resistance when it came to discussing delicate subject matter. All of my respondents for example spoke freely of their sexual aspirations and encounters (or lack thereof). The decision to stop the interview was made when I felt like the person had basically told me all there was to their experiences with Tinder. As a final note, it is worth mentioning that all interviews were conducted in Dutch; the quotes presented below are my translations. I have not discussed these translations with my interviewees, so I take full responsibility should anything have been lost in translation.