Tinder (MTCH) is an app that invites you to approve or reject someone of your sexual orientation based on a photo or three. If they’ve approved you, too, you’re invited to have a conversation, which may result in drinks or even coitus.
But its cofounder and CMO, Justin Mateen, swears in this Huffington Post interview, “It was never meant to be used for hooking up.”
In fact, the company recently did a poll and only “a tiny percentage” of users think that’s what Tinder is for.
Had the rest even heard of Tinder?
“Fundamentally women aren’t wired that way, right?” he added, absurdly. Right, because the women responsible for some of the app’s 5 million daily matches are really just looking for as many straight, male platonic friends as possible.
He insists that Tinder’s “double opt-in,” which ensures users don’t receive messages from people they don’t like, works for business relationships and friendships as well as dating. This is true if you want all of your friends and colleagues to be hot people of the opposite sex, we guess.
It may sound like Mr. Mateen is strangely clueless about his own app and its implementation in the world, but his answer to a question about Tinder’s future makes it obvious that he’s just trying to keep the app’s options open to diversify and monetize:
“We have plans to evolve the product and are moving more towards social discovery. For example, eventually you could be married and on a trip with your husband and find a tennis partner on Tinder. Or it could be used in the context of a business relationship. The next feature we will have, and I can’t say what it is, will allow further engagement with your matches. Once you’re matched up with someone, rather than just texting with them, you will be able to interact in other ways.”
Great, so they’re going to go all Instagram on us and shoehorn in the dating app equivalent of a crappy video feature.
The most popular time to Tinder, Mr. Mateen says, is 6 to 9 p.m. and the busiest day by far is Sunday. Awesomely, the interviewer follows up with, “Is that because people feel like they failed over the weekend?”
“It’s not even about failing over the weekend,” Mr. Mateen says, “it’s just that you’re back to reality on Sunday.”
Right, because what’s more realistic than the pretend world of your cell phone where everyone’s hitting on you and if you don’t like them you can just get back to your game of Candy Crush?
CORRECTION: A previous version of this post incorrectly referred to Mr. Mateen as Tinder’s founder and CEO. In fact, he is cofounder and CMO.