“I was given an IV of narcissism,” remarks journalist Judith Duportail when recalling the high she got from the daily matches and messages in her inbox from various dating apps.
Like many who have pulled up a stool to the slot machine that is online dating, she felt an initial excitement at the possibility of hitting the jackpot with a perfect match. However, what Duportail and many others have found is that in the digital casino of love, the house is the only one that actually wins.
Showing how dating app companies are rigging the game in their own financial favour, Shalini Kantayya’s latest film, Love Apptually, is a thought-provoking look at the true cost of finding love in the modern age. Assembling the final piece of her documentary trilogy, which includes Coded Bias and TikTok, Boom, explores the impact of technology on human connections and provides an expansive examination of not only the rise in popularity of dating apps but also the various dangers they pose.
As anyone who has experience with online dating can attest, finding love in the digital landscape can feel like playing a never-ending game whose rules are not quite clear. Part of this is by design, as many apps make money by keeping users on their platforms as long as possible. Meeting that special someone might benefit you, but it actually hurts the bottom lines of various companies.
Love Apptually emphasizes the point that not only do a handful of companies, such as Match.com, own most of the market share in dating apps, but they are secretly adding things to the algorithm which impact more than just who gets matched with whom. For example, it was recently exposed that Tinder had secretly implemented an ELO Score which basically judged a person’s desirability the way a DUPR rating determines one’s level in Pickleball. If a person was deemed less attractive by the system’s standards, but managed to match with enough folks above their status, the ELO rating would go up. Conversely, if a person was considered hot, but only seemed to match with individuals beneath them then their score would go down.
The ELO score not only determines who and how many see your profile in their feed, but also reveals a sinister side off these apps when it comes to beauty standards.
Playing on people’s insecurities by sketching the ideals for attraction on a canvas of racial stereotypes, the documentary exposes how many of the apps place white women as the default standard for what is beautiful. As Kantayya’s film notes, people of colour often have a steeper hill to climb when searching for a potential mate.
While the subtle discrimination is telling, Love Apptually doesn’t delve into it with any real depth. Similar to Kantayya’s two previous tech inspired documentaries, the film is so overstuffed with information that some items feel like mere footnotes. Fortunately, there is more than enough to get viewers talking. Whether touching on the ways the apps are abusing people’s personal data, the lack of a framework to deal with users who are sexually assaulted on dates, or simply trying to figure out what makes people actually fall in love, the documentary is never lacking in ideas.
Understanding how the romanticized version of love fuels one’s addiction to persist on dating apps, despite the constant heartbreak, the documentary weaves together interviews, clips from iconic rom-coms, and enactments to paint an urgent picture.
An intriguing conversation starter, Love Apptually will have viewers wanting to swipe left on dating apps altogether.
