Tinder’s new height filter is offensive to vertically challenged people
Heightism, body dysmorphia, and trust issues on a dating app feature for the rich? What could possibly go wrong?
Art by Sarah Nelson.
Tinder’s new height filter is letting the algorithm do the dirty work of ghosting someone when they’re not your average straight-out-of-Avatar tall.
Now instead of swiping left manually on anyone who doesn’t double as a skyscraper in sneakers, you can sit back and let technology silently usher the less towering out of your romantic radar. And of course, capitalism has its greasy little fingers all up in this too since this feature, which is being trialled, is only available for desperate and wealthy people with a premium subscription to the app.
Heightism has reached new heights — the short kings suffer and so do the tall queens. A blog post from from OkCupid, another online dating platform, found that a five-foot-four woman receives 60 more messages each year than a six-foot woman.
People don’t value the Morticias or the Gomezes. Who is valued, though? Liars, that’s who. While one may think that the chances of getting a titan of a man or a travel-sized tempest of a woman have increased, I believe that this is all in the hands of the less morally aligned.
It’s no secret that most guys who say they are six-feet tall are actually five feet and 11 inches and most girls who say they’re short like a petite manic pixie fairy are actually just human-sized.
Most people are afraid that we are entering a modern dystopia in the romantic world, where our only strength is using measuring tape and the ability to walk in heels. It’s like a bizarre episode of Black Mirror, except instead of being judged by social scores, you’re disqualified for not being tall enough to ride the emotional roller-coaster.
Romance, once a messy and beautiful gamble, is slowly being stripped down into sortable categories and algorithm-approved dimensions. A fixed game of poker? Where is the thrill? Where is the curiosity?
Other users believe that only those who pay for Tinder will be bothered with such things, so not all users are at the same playing field — or paying field. For many people, the Tinder gods seem to have given their blessing since being conventionally attractive equals an ever-refreshing scroll of admirers, while those paying for premium subscription and height filters are just insecure and trying to seek validation on dating apps instead of spiritual retrieves.
Then again, there might be people who genuinely just don’t want to date people above or below a certain height. Just like how Leonardo DiCaprio has an age filter, some folks have a height filter.
It’s easy to laugh at the absurdity of it all until you realize that something as human as love is being reduced to inches and income brackets — damn you, capitalism. Maybe it’s just a filter, but it speaks volumes about the lengths we’ll go (or not go) to find love in the age of algorithms.
In the ever so romantic Hunger Games, may the odds (and the inches) be ever in your favour.
