BORED GHOSTS AND ANXIOUS TEXT GAMES: HOW DATING APPS ALGORITHMICALLY CHANNEL THE DESIRE FOR INTIMACY INTO ANXIOUS ENGAGEMENT

This article presents two findings from 50 in-depth interviews ofdaters using OkCupid, Tinder, and Bumble. The first finding shows that respondents beganusing dating apps like Tinder and Bumble because they wanted to engage in dialogicalexchanges to get to know their matches, something they felt the elaborate essays on OkCupidrendered redundant. The second finding shows that the intimate exchanges they sought ondating apps were hard to find. Instead of intimacy, they encountered anxious text gamesexacerbated by the widespread practice of ghosting. These findings indicate how the distinctalgorithms employed by OkCupid, Tinder, and Bumble cultivate particular feelings, moods, andmodes of subjectivity. While OkCupid’s algorithm cultivated entrepreneurs of themselvesseeking to optimize their intimate relationships, dating apps cultivate the digital unbored:users compelled to swipe away the angst-inducing boredom of waiting for texts that alwaysmay never come. Dating apps render searches for intimacy fraught with anxiety andsubstantial connections hard to find. But they are well calibrated to the exigencies ofplatform capitalism, where social relations are as likely to be sold as things, especiallywhen they vanish as quickly as they appear – like ghosts.