Climate change, environment and vegetarian. These are the buzzwords Ruby pays attention to when she searches for potential matches on dating sites. The 35-year-old Californian has been looking for love online for more than 10 years and found these terms to be a good indicator of someone’s concern about global warming.
“To me, that signals that they’re aware, they’re interested and they’re also taking concrete steps to address these issues,” she said.
Ruby is not the only one who places this importance. Tinder, OkCupid and Bumble are among the dating services that have integrated features to help users connect.
Environment badges and questionnaires for passions and environmental issues
On Bumble, a global platform that only allows women to make the first contact, users can add badges to their bios as as a way of aligning with different causes. In Germany and the UK, “environmentalism” was the most popular among them in 2021.
People who swipe on Tinder, a well-known dating site even for those who don’t use it, can choose the environment and Fridays for Future from a selection of passions. The company Says that “climate protection” was one of the most mentioned phrases on German Gen Z members’ bios last year. Vegetarianism and veganism were prominently featured on the young generation’s bios. Brazilians’ profiles.
Climate protection was a topic that Gen Z Tinder users in Germany most frequently mentioned last year
OkCupid, another leading dating platform, targets daters from more than 100 countries. They use questionnaires to determine compatibility. The company Says that when asked “which cause is most important to you?When asked “What cause is most important to you this year?” the majority of users answered the environment, beating even world peace. OKCupid announced earlier this month that it had seen a 368% increase of references to climate change/the environment on its members’ profiles compared with five years ago.
In keeping with that trend, the company has temporarily reinstated its climate change advocate badge, which was first rolled out in 2021 and is only available for April, Earth Month. The prominent marker at the top identifies the user immediately as someone who is concerned about the climate. This feature allows users to select only potential matches who are advocates.
Nearly 400,000 people used it last year when it was first introduced. According to an OKCupid spokesperson, over half a million people have added the badge to their profiles this time. Although the company does not disclose how many users it has, it says that it caters to millions and even millions of daters worldwide.
OkCupid says that over half a billion users have added the badge of climate change advocate to their profiles.
Climate advocacy or virtue signaling
Ruby is one of the hundreds of thousands who has added the badge and regards it as a useful way to find like-minded people on OkCupid. Ruby stresses that nothing replaces deep conversations that follow a profile scan. She might have a different understanding of what it means for climate action than other daters.
“Sometimes it almost seems like just another clout seeking label,” she said. “In this progressive space on left, there’s a lot of competition for being as good as you can.”
Max, a 23-year old German man from Berlin, refuses to wear the badge.
“Its nothing more than virtue signaling,” he said. “Both for the app’s users and the app itself. It’s just another reason for people to give themselves a pat on the back, without actually doing anything.
In response to such criticism, OkCupid told DW it had donated $20,000 this year and $25,000 in 2021 to the non-profit Earth Day Initiative as part of its climate change advocacy feature. Match Group Inc., which is the owner of OkCupid and Tinder, had $852 million in operating revenue last year.
Cal, a 25-year old from the northern English city of Leeds, understands others’ reservations. Though he grapples with the name of the climate change advocate badge “it sounds like you love climate change” he likes how it clearly identifies a users stance at the top of their profile.
“For me and quite a lot of other people, that’s a pretty big deal breaker,” he said. “I would like to be able to date people with the same views as me on climate change. We must act quickly.”
Climate stance is a litmus test
Cal claims that even without the badge, he gravitates towards apps that allow him to filter out people based on climate questions. This avoids unpleasant surprises in the future. And because it is an indicator of other issues on which he and his match might not see eye to eye.
Nora, 33, also had this experience. Though she is now no longer on OkCupid, when she lived in the rural US state of Montana, she used to filter potential matches based on their opinion on climate change. It became almost a litmus test of ideological compatibility.
“If a person doesn’t believe that climate change is real, that to me is like a cascade indicator of things that they also won’t care about or value,” she said.
Ruby, back home in California can relate. She wants to avoid interactions that detract from the main objective of dating apps: forming connections.
“If I have to convince someone why they should care about the environment, why they should take steps to address their personal contributions to harm reduction, that’s time that I’m not spending bonding with them,” she said. “While that is important work it is also emotional work.”
Edited By: Tamsin W. Walker
