scholarly journals TOP 5 TINDER HACKS! BLACKBOXING ALGORITHMS IN THE DATING APP INDUSTRY

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Myles ◽  
Martin Blais
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Data ◽  
Online Dating ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Sexuality Studies ◽  
Gender And Sexuality Studies ◽  
Dating Apps ◽  
Black Boxes ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Do So

Tinder’s swipe feature operates algorithms that have influenced a new generation of dating apps. In this paper, we argue that the mystique surrounding Tinder’s algorithms is as productive for the dating app industry as the actual technical operations they perform. We seek to understand how actors in the dating industry construct matchmaking algorithms as strategic unknowns that can be harnessed to reach commercial objectives. To do so, we mobilize the notion of ‘algorithmic blackboxing’ – how actors strategically construct algorithms as black boxes to reach certain goals – to analyze a corpus of 48 online dating guides that offer ‘best advice’ to exploit Tinder’s matchmaking algorithms. Our analysis shows that dating guides overwhelmingly construct Tinder’s algorithms as black boxes whose secrets must be unlocked for users to generate matches and, therefore, find love. The alleged unintelligibility and opacity of Tinder’s algorithms allow self-proclaimed ‘dating experts’ to sell their advice or services in the context of a speculative dating economy. To obtain more matches, dating guides promote a common injunction: to hack Tinder. They invite users to modulate their behaviors and practices to become more algorithmically recognizable. Dating guides also readily invoke rhetorical arguments that draw on statistical data produced by Tinder, which highlights the emergence of new ‘regimes of truth’ within the matchmaking industry that enact a dataist ideology. We conclude by advocating for the importance of critically examining the increasing algorithmic mediation of dating cultures at the intersection of Internet, gender, and sexuality studies.

scholarly journals Individuation, Sexuation, Technicity

2020 ◽  
pp. 026327642096740
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Seely
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Sexuality Studies ◽  
Gender And Sexuality Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Feminist And Queer Theory

Within the context of questions raised by gender and sexuality studies about the relationship between sex and technics, I develop a theory of sexuation derived from Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation. First, I provide an overview of Simondon’s philosophy of individuation, from the physical to the collective. In the second section, I turn to the question of sexuality, outlining an ontogenetic account in which sexuation is conceived as a process of both individuation and relation that is fundamental to certain living beings. Then, drawing on Simondon’s theorization of technics in its mediating function between humans and the world, I resituate understandings of the relation between sex and technics. While each section – Individuation, Sexuation, Technicity – argues for the significance of these concepts to feminist and queer theory, overall the essay uses Simondon’s work as a new paradigm for gender and sexuality studies and calls for the invention of a sexuate culture.

scholarly journals Introduction to the JAS at AAS Roundtable on “Sexuality and the State in Asia”

2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 919-927
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. Remick
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Sexuality Studies ◽  
Gender And Sexuality Studies ◽  
Current State ◽  
Social Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Asking Questions

Attendees of the 2012 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) annual conference in Toronto were treated to two extraordinary speeches at the presidential address and awards ceremony. First, Charlotte Furth's acceptance of the AAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies was a primer in the history of China-related gender studies (Furth 2012). Then, as Rachel Leow discusses in her paper in this forum, outgoing AAS President Gail Hershatter followed up with an inspirational critique (reprinted in this issue) of the current state of gender and sexuality studies in China. Taken together, these two speeches showed how far gender and sexuality studies in Asia have come in the last forty years, but also suggested that it is time for some fresh approaches. For example, Furth explained that when the Cambridge History of China volumes on Republican China were commissioned, she and others argued strenuously for the inclusion of a chapter on gender; but in the end, one could not be written because no one had yet done the scholarship on which such a chapter could be based. Fortunately, all of this has changed: the scholarship is there now. But Hershatter quite rightly pointed out that it is time to rethink many of the categories of analysis we have been using, because they are preventing us from asking questions we should be asking, and therefore making us miss the meanings of crucial social events and phenomena.

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