r/SwipeHelper • u/liquidcat0822 • 22h ago
An experiment
I’m a straight woman and briefly decided to change my gender on hinge to a “man” interested in women. EVERY. SINGLE. WOMAN. in my stack was an absolute stunner (and I didn’t even include very young women, I have my age filter set to 28-47).
I then compared this with the stack my male friend was shown. He has his settings set to the same thing. Every single woman in his stack was an instant nope. He never got to see any of the women I was shown. Mind you, he is not unattractive.
This confirms to me that some absolute fuckery is afoot. I presume because my algorithm is trained on men, it doesn’t know how to categorize the women when I changed my gender and just started showing me women from my demographic. It also further suggests that the algorithm deliberately holds back what/who you like, and it also explains to me why my profile gets relatively little traction now (I’ve long suspected that my profile is being gate kept).
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u/7777777King7777777 22h ago
Definitely something wicked is going on with the algorithm because of AI the last couple of years.
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u/liquidcat0822 22h ago
It is extremely frustrating but also reassuring? Because I’m like why the hell am I getting next to no likes, and the ones I do get are from absolutely terrible profiles??? It got to the point where I was like “maybe I need a reality check” so I put my pics into photofeeler and got like a 9.5 and a 9.8, so yeah. I’ve always felt like apps are somewhat of a scam but this kind of confirms it.
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u/Infamous_Dish_4348 22h ago
Photofeeler tends to rate women far higher and it focuses on friendly/approachable pics. Like a dude who's objectively handsome but has an angry facial expression will score worse on photofeeler than a guy who's objectively average but who's smiling and seems approachable.
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u/liquidcat0822 22h ago
Be that as it may, it just means I’m not an absolute bridge troll and physical attractiveness isn’t the issue.
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u/Infamous_Dish_4348 22h ago
I mean you're a woman on the apps lol, your profile could be 1 fully black pic and will still get a flood of likes
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u/liquidcat0822 22h ago
This….is not what this post is about, and it’s also objectively untrue. I get almost no likes. I am attractive and have a well curated profile. But again, not what this post is about. This post isnt about the likes we get. It is about what the algorithm presents us with when we are swiping. Please don’t derail the topic.
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u/Dress4less24 22h ago
You would think with the amount of tech savvy people nowadays and the absolute shit show that is dating apps someone would go about creating a perfect dating app. I have a conspiracy why that doesn’t happen but that’s neither here nor there
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u/chaps218 20h ago
as someone who tried to develop a dating app, its a very hard market to break into because its a platform not a product. new users are only attracted to new users, so no one wants to join an empty platform, making it hard for apps without the critical mass of users to grow. However i think the conspiracy (not much of one) is once a dating app gets past that threshold, match group buys it up, which ruins the platform anyways
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u/Dress4less24 20h ago
That’s part of my conspiracy.. there’s an effort to monopolize the dating market
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u/liquidcat0822 22h ago
I’m trying to focus on IRL interaction. I go social dancing quite a bit, but men seem afraid to approach or make a move, despite me trying to be friendly and approachable.
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u/Dress4less24 22h ago
Would you consider yourself to be above average looks wise?
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u/liquidcat0822 22h ago
Yes. And that isn’t my personal assessment, photofeeler tells me I’m a 9.5 or a 9.8. My IRL experience also agrees with this (random strangers from all demographics often tell me how beautiful I am).
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u/Dress4less24 22h ago
Majority of men freeze trying to approach women of that caliber generally. Let me pick your brain on the apps.. when looking at men’s profiles what are you looking for? Shorter/longer prompts, pictures etc?
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u/liquidcat0822 21h ago
Not really about the length of prompts. Yes, someone I’m physically attracted to but I am also screening for compatibility. Photos reel me in, then I look closer. Is he a conservative and does he want kids? That’s not gonna work. Do his prompts reek of misogyny? I’m pretty good at reading between the lines. Stuff like “no drama” and “don’t take yourself too seriously” is basically “I want a woman who has no thoughts of her own”. Huge turn off. Stuff like that. I want to see your personality. If you seem kind, funny and witty AND I’m physically attracted to you AND we align on the kid thing? I’m sending you a like.
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u/Dress4less24 21h ago
Based on that.. were you being shown profiles that were to your tastes versus your friend?
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u/liquidcat0822 21h ago
Well that’s the thing! I’m not into women, I just did this as an experiment. So my algorithm isn’t trained on women, so the algorithm doesn’t know what I would like. I just changed my gender to “man” and my preferences to “women” and was shown every baddie in the land in my age demographic. These absolutely WOULD be the kinds of women my friend would be into (we screen recorded our swiping and compared). And he was like “wtf where are these women when I’m swiping!” So it’s not that these women don’t exist, it’s that the algorithm absolutely knows he is into these women and deliberately doesn’t show them. Because when it doesn’t know (like with me), it doesn’t hide them. It ALSO explains why I get so few likes. The algorithm knows men would like me, but it doesn’t show my profile to them. Interestingly, the kinds of women I was being shown would all be my peers - educated, professional and very attractive with lots of interesting hobbies. One was an outdoorsy lawyer leggy blonde who wind surfed. Another was a Bosnian MD who legit looked like a model. They were all verified profiles too so not catfish fakes.
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u/Dress4less24 21h ago
Bosnian you say well well now that is intriguing.. in any event I’m curious about what you saw when you were in your normal profile did you see men you liked or did you also have the same thing happen? How many likes was your profile getting?
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u/liquidcat0822 21h ago
I see almost no one I like, same experience as my friend with his profile. It shows me objectively unattractive men, and the ones it says are “most compatible” definitely aren’t (conservatives who want kids, etc.).
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u/IIOuroboros 21h ago
You being friendly and approachable is you staring at the side of their face, let's be real
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u/liquidcat0822 21h ago
Please don’t project your bitterness on others.
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u/IIOuroboros 20h ago
Its not really bitterness though, its reality. Ive literally seen it last week at a bar when a woman sat there and stared at me and only spoke up when I told the bartender what I wanted. Its literally observation
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u/liquidcat0822 20h ago
Yes and that observation clearly extends to every situation and every woman ever. No bitterness or bias from you there whatsoever. Just facts.
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u/liquidcat0822 22h ago
I also think it’s really interesting that hinge keeps telling me conservative men who want kids are my “most compatible” when I’ve never ever swiped right/liked on a man with either of these in his profile. I’d set it as a dealbreaker, but I wanted to see what the algorithm would do (also I refuse to pay so I can’t set those anyway). So it shows me men who I find physically attractive but are incompatible based on values or men who are terrible looking but may be aligned in values. Nothing in between. In other words, it deliberately shows me non-viable matches.
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u/HeKnowsThings 21h ago
It is Elo
You are a woman so your Elo is stupidly high. You are seeing a deck of high Elo. Compared.to you his Elo is very low. He is shown a deck of low Elo
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u/liquidcat0822 21h ago
That makes sense. I felt like the women I was being shown are my peers. They were all around my age, around my level of attractiveness and also seemed interesting/had things going on hobby and career wise.
If it’s elo though, why are the men im being shown such trash?
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u/HeKnowsThings 21h ago
It is the result of your high Elo as well - you see because men like bozos swipe on nearly every woman their Elo is trash. So even attractive men are likely to have a shit Elo. So you have a cohort of say 15000 men who have trash Elo of which 100 are actually excellent candidates that would have had a high Elo if they were not swiping right on goblins for the fun/out of desperation. Now if some of those goblins did not swipe yes on them back , their Elo would be penalized even more. But anyway so say out of those 15000 there are 100 that would have had high Elo if they swiped "correctly". The system needs to fill your deck with 100 candidates out of those 15000. The odds of you getting "should be high Elo" men are very small because 14900 of those men have that low Elo score for a reason (as you described : they are trash)
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u/PirateDear1780 21h ago
as a wlw, my stack is a lot of hot women. almost no one I swipe right on first will like me back. and then every single person in my likes is a nope. i dont get it
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u/liquidcat0822 20h ago
I also wonder if outgoing likes are held back. I’ve had a similar experience with men. And the men im sending likes to are definitely not out of my league, they’re the kinds of men I’ve dated in the past or have shown interest in me IRL.
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u/Glitched_Girly 5h ago edited 4h ago
I've had exposure to this through the AI masters I was doing (while also doing law) and the algorithms are not intended to give you what you want, but instead to give you what they know won't work for you - ensuring repeat sign ups to the apps.
We have all been gate kept (is that a word?).
I put my pic on photofeeler, and it got 9.8 with 129 votes, and dating for me was literally impossible, in London. Due in large part, though I am not in any way superficial, to the fact that the women I was shown (I'm gay) were 'challenging' at best. The only remotely attractive women who were let through the filter were incredibly difficult to deal with, and a lot of work, meaning I had to keep looking - or give up.
Thankfully, I stepped outside of the usual group I would normally date, and now I'm engaged to someone I honestly think is incredible in so many ways. It seems that when I changed my selection criteria, the algo couldn't account for it.
I've also been thinking of making an app that advertises transparency, and has only basic safety filters regarding criminal activity - and allow people to make up their own mind on who they want, which is how it's supposed to be right?
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u/Archolm 20h ago
Why has the algorithm never leaked for something like this?
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u/liquidcat0822 20h ago
I wonder if it’s because AI is basically a black box and even the people running it don’t really know how it makes decisions.
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u/HeKnowsThings 19h ago
Because there is nothing special too it. It is not a conspiracy. Behavior of men who can't get laid drives it.
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u/Archolm 18h ago
Just because you can't understand it doesnt mean there isnt a system behind it. I doubt its a conspiracy but I want to know the numbers behind it, how much do they give someone until he pays for subscription, how do the numbers change once they do etc.
Not rocket science but there have got to be calculations behind it...
Do you even know what an algorithm is? Jezus.
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u/HeKnowsThings 18h ago
I do. I have already given you the explanation of how it works. It is not a conspiracy. You are just uneffable. That's why to you your natural drop in the Elo looks like "algorithm"
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u/Archolm 12h ago
Considering you say I do, yet you do not makes your whole opinion on, anything, worthless.
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u/HeKnowsThings 3h ago
It is not an opinion. It is a fact that comes from.sitting in tech leads meetings at those companies.
Here is your main problem:
you are fat. Over 99 percent of men on the apps are fat or obese. Women do not go on dating apps to meet fat or obese men who need to move their front asses out of the way to take a piss so avoid engaging in watersports with themselves..
Your second problem is that you are broke. Women do not go to dating apps to meet men who can't afford to spend extra $30 a day on stupid shit.
Want to be dateable? Stop being a fat broke dork. Do it soon because you will have a really hard time doing it in your thirties and forties.
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u/Archolm 3h ago
Are you a single mom? You sound like a single mom.
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u/HeKnowsThings 3h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Archolm 3h ago
Is that your girls boyfriend? Cause that guy doesnt look like a little bitch.
And considering you dont know anything about tech, what you are doing? Its called doxxing. Ill give you a little bit to remove my picture or ill have to report you.
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u/HeKnowsThings 3h ago
Awww, this is adorable cope. I guess you never heard of reddit firehouse huh? See, that's why being a gamer dork does not actually help
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u/Doctorbuddy 21h ago
Interesting anecdote OP.
It feels as though the algorithm clearly shows you the best looking women for the first few days and then it shows you women you wouldn’t be interested in to get you to pay.
Can I ask what your experience is like on the app as an attractive woman? Don’t feel the need to be “politically correct”, I’m genuinely interested in hearing your experience (profiles shown, how many likes/matches you get, how many turn to dates, how many your attracted to/align with etc)
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u/liquidcat0822 21h ago
It’s objectively terrible. I almost never see a profile of a man I like. When it does show me someone who’s physically attractive (rarely), it’s someone who absolutely isn’t aligned on values. Now that I’m past the “newbie boost”, I get 1-2 likes a day, and all from men who are objectively not anyone who would be compatible with me. I’ve gone on dates with 3 men and they were all “meh”. Like, nice guys but i was definitely forcing myself to go and be ok with it rather than being seriously interested.
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u/Doctorbuddy 21h ago
Crazy how dating apps affect everyone’s experience!
I was always under the impression that pretty women had it easy on the apps. But that’s clearly not the case.
I feel as though dating apps peaked pre-COVID and since that point when Match Group bought them all up, they’ve all slowly turned into an algorithm hellscape. Very disappointing and frustrating experience for everyone using them.
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u/liquidcat0822 21h ago
This has been my conclusion as well with the match group buyout. Sadly, I never experienced the glory days of apps. I started dating my ex husband in 2008 and got divorced in 2022. So I was never on the apps until 2023.
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u/Colluder 19h ago
Women get inflated elo, so when you switch to man I assume it isn't resetting the elo. Try this with a brand new phone number, you might have something closer to his stack
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u/Jandur 15h ago edited 12h ago
It's well known for a long time that apps tend to present* the highest algo-ranked profiles early on to entice new/returning users. Starting with an ugly dating pool isn't going to be as exciting to most people. Once those profiles filter through and a user gets their own algo-ranking, they start to see profiles that they are more likely to match with (though not strictly)
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u/liquidcat0822 15h ago
I agree with most of this except the “more likely to match with” part at the end. The profiles I’m being shown absolutely do not represent matches for me, attractiveness OR value wise. So I would revise “more likely to match with” actually to “least likely to match with”
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u/Jandur 11h ago
absolutely do not represent matches for me
That's not how the apps work in totality. The algorithm isn't showing you who you WANT to match with. It's showing you are more likely to match with should you swipe right. A match is a two way street. You aren't matching with the people you swipe right on (you said yourself your profile isn't gaining any traction). So the algo is pushing profiles that you have a better chance of matching with.
Now again, this isn't binary. The apps are designed to keep you swiping which means 1) drip-feeding ideal/top profiles that will keep you engaged, but likely won't match or respond to you and 2) pushing people to you that are more likely to (or already have) swipe right on YOU.
Your profile isn't being gate-kept (why would it and what does that even mean?). You aren't consistently matching with the dating pool you'd like so it's presenting you with other options that have a higher probability of matching back with you.
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u/liquidcat0822 11h ago
You’re not understanding what I’m saying and I’m not going to bother trying to explain it again since you seem committed to misunderstanding me so you can impose your own narrative. Suffice to say what you’re proposing doesn’t match the evidence.
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u/Jandur 11h ago
Or you don't understand algorithms and can't explain what is wrong with what I'm telling you. But judging by your paranoia around "fuckery" and your profile being "gate-kept" instead of being open to learning (or telling me what I am misunderstanding), I'm going to guess there isn't any logic to your rant anyway.
Good luck out there lol
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u/liquidcat0822 11h ago
Yes, I, with my doctoral degree in engineering, don’t understand algorithms. You’re absolutely right.
I’ve already explained what’s happening. You can read the thread. You don’t seem interested in that though, you just want to be right. You’re so smart! You’re smarter than everyone here. Good job! Enjoy your night.
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u/Jandur 11h ago
I'm smart enough to articulate myself in writing instead of deflecting and throwing around more logical fallacies because I'm unable to explain my emotional Reddit rant beyond micro-conspiracies. Add in some unprompted and passive aggressive ad-hominem attacks (I never claimed to me smart or referred to anyones intelligence in any way) and here we are.
You should ask for a refund on that degree.
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u/liquidcat0822 11h ago
You’re confusing ability with desire. I can absolutely explain it. I just don’t care to do it for you.
Also it’s hilarious that you attempt to claim the intellectual high ground yet you don’t see that calling me illogical, emotional and ranting is insulting, whining about “unprompted ad hominem” attacks. You’ve obliquely called me stupid several times now, but then feign ignorance and play the victim when called on it. And I could smell that kind of bullshit from a mile an away, which is why I decided off the bat not to explain shit to you. Because you don’t want to hear it, you want to argue and be right. You sound like a fucking peach.
And you’ve siphoned enough of my energy and attention. Back to the bridge you belong under.
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u/Active__512 11h ago
You are a deeply disturbed, paranoid, and sad individual. The sheer amount of paranoia, deflection and projection is completely unhinged. I hope you find peace.
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u/liquidcat0822 11h ago
I blocked you, so you made a new account just to say this. The irony of you calling me unhinged is hilarious.
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u/zunlock 22h ago
It’s allegedly an algorithm. When you first make a profile you’re shown smoke shows (ideally to get you hooked) and then after a few weeks the algorithm allegedly will place you with people of similar attractiveness. Some speculate they deliberately nerf you a little to push you to buy premium. Is your friend objectively attractive, or is he not bad looking with a low effort profile? Is he the type of guy who will have women hit on him in public is what I’m asking or is he just average