I’m Single, Therefore I Tinder | Hacker News Reader

I’m Single, Therefore I Tinder

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42 pointsdeanmoriarty25 comments

I'm more and more convinced companies strategically post things online using a very large, diverse asset base.

Commonly known as astroturfing.

I haven't heard a peep about Tinder for about 6 months now, and today suddenly it front pages on Reddit _and_ hackernews?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Tinder/comments/23gvy0/its_hard_bein...

http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/23hyv2/uragu35_creat...

Who is pulling the strings here, and how can I hire them? I also want an obscenely large amount of eyeballs on my product.

The cross-site trends are easily explainable- the same people use both sites. One site picks up something, the other follows shortly thereafter.

I've even seen comments replicated word-for-word between the two sites. Which I'm pretty sure isn't a sign of astroturfing, as it would be much too damning.

Ryan Holiday [1] has written about doing this kind of work, though I believe he has quit since. It's probably not a service most people advertise publicly since it's in the gray zone, ethically and with respect to rules of the media used. I recommend Trust Me, I'm Lying written by the same man for an interesting account of this.

[1]: http://www.ryanholiday.net/

The post that launched my company in 2009[1] was not launched or encouraged in any significant way by me, but it showed up on hacker news, reddit, and a few other places nearly all at once. I mean, the guy had asked a few questions, and maybe he told me he was doing a review; I don't rightly remember, but that wasn't particularly unusual; sysadmins benchmark things all the time and it usually doesn't end up causing anything noteworthy.

What was unusual was that my revenue went from... very little to enough to quit my dayjob in a very short period of time. Afterwards, I gave the guy a lot of free credit, just 'cause he was so impactful to my business, but he did another review not that long after, finding that Linode's superior I/O (and, I think, more VCPUs) made more difference for his application than the additional ram that I gave them at the tested price point.

My point is that when something gains natural traction on one user-curated news sites, it's only natural that it will gain traction on other user-curated news sites with overlapping userbases.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=590993

This is definitely not astroturfing, it's just a coincidence.

Astroturfing is when there's a systemic pattern of submissions by parties who have a vested interest in the promotion of said company.

A recent example: On Reddit, it was recently discovered that a moderator on r/hearthstone was upvoting links to a certain Hearthstone fansite and flagging all others (even when the other sites have better info). That site was owned by gaming network Curse, and it was discovered that said moderator was employed by Curse. It wasn't pretty.

I use Tinder and have met a ton of really amazing people through it, including a girl who is now my best friend's long term girl friend. I don't use it to date though purely because if I venture into that realm, the temptation to play it like a game is too high.

However, if you want to know how to Tinder, it's simpler than this is making it:

1. Choose pictures where you look good. Simple as that, don't overthink it - whatever "looks good" means to you is probably right. If not, ask your friend of opposite sex.

2. Write something funny in your description that leads the other person to have something to say to you.

3. Don't be shy - message people you find interesting with what you find interesting about them. If you don't find anything interesting about them and have nothing to say, don't send anything! If what you find interesting about them is they're attractive, that counts as finding nothing interesting about them.

4. Ask them out with your friends. The goal should be to include new people in your life, and the best way to do that is to say "my friends are going out to x place tonight, would you like to join us? It'll be x number of us, bring your friends if you want".

#4 is why Grouper is so fantastic btw.

Right whatever you want, but if you can't spell I'll never date you. ;)

I don't know why people are downvoting this, I like it! Fixed (for anyone wondering, I spelled "write" "right")

The guidelines suggest to avoid Reddit-like jokes and cleverness (or at least they did at one time -- I can no longer find that admonition).

Hey I wasn't trying to be funny! I was just trying to be a grammar nazi. I'm pretty sure that being overly pedantic has always been allowed.

Ack. Just speculating as to why people might be downvoting.

I don't get this, you're supposed to decide whether you like somebody or not with _only_ one picture while writing unique descriptions that could give you some insights to his or her personality is actively discouraged?

I mean sure, this would work great for one night stands, but I think bars with drunk people are superior in this aspect.

The guidelines for HN. Not the guidelines for Tinder.

Ah never mind, 2 AM seems to be to late for my brain today.

Data or it didn't happen.

Also i think some of this advice is plain wrong. Pictures of you alongside a female friend attract more attention, and "being original" doesn't really cut it, attraction is moments and being your average self is sometimes not enough to initiate the spark.

This reads like one of those cheesy pickup line / how to pick up women "tutorials".

"Peter, with his crazy profile, has a strategic opening message that he claims to be successful with more than 80 percent of the time. I call it 'The Neg And Reverse.'”

I mean come on!

Here are the steps to Tinder, as I understand it (never used it personally, since I'm married, but I have friends who do):

    1. Be reasonably attractive.
    1.1. Have a reasonably good picture of yourself.
    2. Use the app for a few minutes a day.

There is no step three. At this point you will be busy dating.

If you fail step one, it's probably time to get in shape, since that can make almost anyone a lot more attractive. If you're in shape and unattractive, that is hard, and I wish you the best of luck. :-/

As someone relatively plugged-in to the PUA community, outsiders would be surprised how nuanced the discussion on this divide is.

I suspect that the game of love is impervious to hacking. Not that PUA techniques don't work (they do, and it is not a fun realization to have that people are so easily manipulated on something that seems pretty core), but that a lot of what people are seeking is ego validation, and you'll get "technique validation" instead.

I don't doubt that some variations on PUA techniques can improve your success rate. I mean, the negation is ludicrous: humans are perfectly capable of detecting and ignoring posturing during mating dances. But you can get NN% of the way there by doing things that actually add value, and as a bonus, people won't think you are a scumbag.

Except that negging works. Talking about differences right away makes you seem honest and unafraid of losing the relationship immediately.

The way it's phrased in PUA tutorials is often silly or hyperbolic, but it doesn't mean it's not a fun bridge into conversation that works well on dates or when flirting.

In the long run, the only way in which it "works" is that you lose any semblance of being a decent human being and people can just straight-up see that you're a scumbag from the get-go.

Tinder is good for random hookups, but if you are in any way selective based on something else than appearance then it's a waste of time.

I've used it quite successfully for the former in the past weeks, but since I'm looking for the latter I've mostly stopped. (There's really no need for elaborate messages. A few witty and original messages, followed by "Do you want to get drinks?" has so far always worked.)

There is still no good way to solve this problem using technology at the moment. Or maybe I'm bitter because I lost at the tinder game.

I lost at tinder because it "failed to send the sms" message. No response from their "support".

This reads like a mess of disgusting PUA crap.

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