Vintage computer dating/chatbot ads. Computer dating will apparently make you ride away on a light beam!
You can read my earlier piece on the history of dating via the computer: Toxic Algorithms: ELO Rating & Dating Apps
According to Newsweek, a “relationship recession” and “singles pandemic” is in full force, and this will have supposedly dire consequences.
In pop culture, being “single” is touted as a primary barrier to happiness. Even worse, cultural perceptions and propaganda have suggested that feminism is the culprit—driving away relationships and love and children. Such perceptions are reinforced by reward structures built into algorithms, apps, and equipment in Tech.
Emulating the Tech Power Couple
Screenshot of Tech Power couples from a Google Search.
For highly educated woman in the 2010s, there was the lure of the “power couple”. By the 2010s, Millennial women were entering corporate, tech, and other STEM fields en masse, often guided by the naive hope that Lean In offered. Books like Lean In fostered an appealing image of a tech “power couple”, with unrealistic and aspirational advice for 50/50 chore splitting, childcare, mutual ambition, and love. Meanwhile, this Millennial coming-of age coincided with the rise of dating apps, smartphones, social media, all which glamorized the use of computers as a dating tool. The message: the right partner will make you twice as smart, twice as successful, and twice as rich. Alas, this was often unachievable.
Tech’s so-called power couples had a peculiar influence on dating culture in the 2010s. Big Tech couples (Bill and Melinda Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan) were glorified. Money, influence, satisfying careers, great outfits and hair, love, and maybe kids. There were the “19 Hottest Power Couples in tech”, how power couples manage life, “Tech Power Couples in Atlanta” , “20 of Tech’s Power Couples” , Dating apps for aspiring power couples. Profiles on how power couples managed their life accompanied by cute pictures of weddings and pets. This lifestyle was idealized. Sure, not everyone could be COO of Facebook, but they could certainly maintain a high-powered career, relationship, kids, and beauty.
However, many of these relationships were profoundly dysfunctional (Bill and Melinda Gates for example). There were post-quarantine divorces. More and more women are speaking up about the mental, emotional, financial, and physical toll of these relationships. Some Millennial women did “have it all” for a moment, but then, once they had children realized that Sandberg’s vision of benevolent bosses was just a myth. Many were forced to “lean out” of their career because of a lack of supportive environments, adequate paid time off, vacation, days, sick days.
50% of women left tech by 35. Once COVID-19 hit, one woman shut down her own startup because her husband couldn’t manage caring for the house and the toddler. Other women-led startups closed. Articles like “career or kids” emerged. The Lean In bubble, that implied that sexism, racism, and barrier weren’t really issues any more for women, had burst.
Romance Is a Numbers Game
During the 2010s, dating apps exploded in popularity. Rather than a novelty for the “techy/nerdy” they became the mainstream way to date. Dating apps were particularly targeted for and used by college-aged and 20-something women. These companies deliberately targeted college campuses in their advertising strategies and even sent reps to campus.
Then intent of most undergraduate women, compared to men, was to find a long-term partner, rather than casual sex. Even among a broader pool of adults, many women were using the apps to find a longer-term partner.
More insidiously, dating apps presented singledom as something that can be “gamed” out of though persistence and getting enough matches. Bumble, a dating app designed for women, is one of the most popular apps. Like Sandberg’s Lean In, dating apps imply that if one just tries hard enough, and invest enough time, they can find success.
Yet the system is much more dysfunctional and toxic than it appears on the surface. The algorithms and gamification of these apps, reinforces heteronormative and gender-conforming behavior. More disturbingly, this can encourage women “to compete” against each other.
Toxic Dating App ads, providing both “hope” and shaming singledom.
They stoke a fear of missing out (FOMO), if you don’t engage. There’s pressure to keep messaging, swiping, engaging in certain self-imposed rules to potentially keep a love interest someone hooked. People get hooked on the dopamine rushes of likes and messages and potential matches. More luringly, is the possibility that passionate love is just around the corner, making singledom less and less appealing. This can peer pressure single people to join since all their friends and potential matches appear to also be online. Though apps like Bumble appear to “empower” women to “make the first move”, in fact, it is transient since we still have double standards. Abuse and harassment can also be facilitated by these apps.
In “Sad, paranoid and still single: How the dating app destroyed us all” suggests that loneliness in an increasingly busy world may drive people towards dating apps. A user named Michelle suggests, that though she and her friends want to “enjoy” single life, their “secret wish” is to find a romantic partner
urban girls(. . .) they want to enjoy their single life but also they are dreaming of meeting the perfect guy, even if they tell everyone that it’s only for fun. [. . .] I mean me and my friends of mine, who are interested in using Bumble, it’s for that, it’s because we all want to have fun and we all want to enjoy our single life but we do hope to meet someone in this context because it’s fun and it’s and it would be if like we want to be hit by, by love, like, like “oh, I wasn’t looking for this but it just happened” you know
Michelle’s quote suggests that she and her friends use Bumble, with the secret hopes of finding the “perfect guy”. Outwardly, they embrace the “fun narrative” of a single’s life, or the cool script for heterosexual women (Lee, 2019).
Top results from TikTok when searching “tech power couples” and “dating app advice”.
This pressure also implies some sort of guaranteed “reward”, some sort of “promise” for happiness. There are of course, tax breaks and other legal implications to incentivize marriage in the United States. They are expected to subtly “opt-out” of feminism as time goes by. This may be completely inadvertent as they become enmeshed in patriarchal institutions like religion, organized youth teams and activities, domesticity and childcare. Even for the most diligent heterosexual couples, gender norms can rear their ugly heads.
Even worse, there is increasing pressure for women to lower their standards in dating. Articles tout the benefits of the “Marriage of unequal” and that “Marriage Suits Educated Women”, —that women just need to lower than standards, which Lyz Lenz here brilliantly takes down.
The Carrot or the Stick?
“Hopeful” singles is what Dating Apps are targeting. But what about “Unhopeful Singles?” Or “contented singles?” They are an untapped market, a potential for opportunity.
Facebook from its earliest inception had a relationship status on its page. “Single status” could garner passive aggressive comments and “likes”, while “relationships” could be used to flaunt to past exes. Social media platforms like Instagram, glamorize pictures of relationships; wedding websites had chatrooms and social media presence. A breakup/being single could be a source of shame on Facebook. Vogue even ran an article this year entitled “Am I Marrying for Love Or AM I Marrying for Social Media?”
Social media is particularly entwined with the wedding industry and has almost “replaced” the traditional wedding planner, with sites like Pinterest and TikTok being particularly popular for sharing advice, tips, and venting.
Enterprise Apps Today shows that 64% of people take wedding ideas from Pinterest. Furthermore, Gitnux reveals that 76% of US couples resort to online resources for wedding planning. In this digital age, these aren’t just supplementary statistics but indicators of a monumental shift in the wedding market, transitioning from traditional planning methods to online platform
But tech isn’t the first offender of fearmongering singledom. It only ramped it up. Traditional magazine-type articles run pieces like “To Survive All Your Friends' Weddings When You're Single (And Feeling Kind Of Lonely” and “10 Tips For Surviving Wedding Season Solo” as if “Wedding season” was the worst time of year. Ominous articles like this The Single-Person Penalty is Real. Here’s How to Protect Your. Finances don’t help. Ultimately, there are structures set up in American society to “reward” married couples, like being able to add a spouse to your health insurance plan, tax breaks, and increased loans options.
Yet the dating app’s goal is not necessarily to match up users permanently, but to keep them hooked, to keep them in a state of constant dating. If everybody paired up, then there would be no more growth on the apps right?
BUT according to them, if you don’t conform to this lifestyle, nobody will love you, and isn’t that the worse fate of all? However, perusing reddit reveals some candid, unfiltered takes on the pressure women faced for being single.
In my late 20s I realized I was pursuing dating due to societal expectations, and not because it was what I actually wanted to spend my time doing, so I quit doing it. I'm 37 now and very happy being single and childfree. […] The only thing that I sometimes find tough to navigate is still the societal expectations thing. "Taking some time for yourself" between relationships is deemed socially acceptable, and people have sympathy if you're "putting yourself out there" and simply haven't found your match yet. But, when people find out I don't pursue dating at all, they don't quite know what to do with me. It's seen as very outside the norms of society. I've built up relationships over the years with other women who don't completely center men in their lives, but that took a long time, and it's still awkward when I meet someone new and they want to immediately start talking about dating.
my whole life, my parents have wanted grandkids and always bugged me about it any time they saw me. I have finally gotten to the point where I’m content and I feel like I’m ‘driving the car’ in my own life. The realization I came to was that I don’t owe anyone anything, and it’s not mandatory to live my life in any way that doesn’t fill my cup. I am responsible for my own happiness and my lifestyle (and unconventional, furry family) shouldn’t be anyone else’s concern.
It’s important to think deeply about your own motives for dating and to protect your mental health.
Conclusion
Given the dystopian political landscape for women, more are considering radical ideas, including “opting out” of marriage, having children, or even dating men. More models need to be visible to women beyond heteronormative lifestyles. Books like Lean In continue to center and pressure motherhood, marriage, and fertility as default aspirations.
There are other possibilities: being together but living apart. Being single with rich friendships and chosen family. Becoming a single mother by choice. Non-monogamous relationships. Finding and developing a career path that nurtures and fulfills you. Unleashing your creativity.
Maybe instead of swapping dating tips, women can swap tips on securing financial independence, creativity, autonomy, and activism.
The way you connect power couple mythology with algorithm-driven FOMO really highlights how much pressure is manufactured, not organic. I also appreciate you centering contented single women whose lives don’t revolve around optimizing for partnership.
The picture in your article reminded me of covers from computer magazines in former Yugoslavia in the 80s: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/racunari-cover-girls/ There's a LOT to unpack there.