Seeing and being seen: Co-situation and impression formation using Grindr, a location-aware gay dating app

Abstract

While online spaces and communities were once seen to transcend geography, the ubiquity of location-aware mobile devices means that today's online interactions are deeply intertwined with offline places and relationships. Systems such as online dating applications for meeting nearby others provide novel social opportunities, but can also complicate interaction by aggregating or "co-situating" diverse sets of individuals. Often this aggregation occurs across traditional spatial or community boundaries that serve as cues for self-presentation and impression formation. This paper explores these issues through an interview study of Grindr users. Grindr is a location-aware real-time dating application for men who have sex with men. We argue that co-situation affects how and whether Grindr users and their behavior are visible to others, collapses or erases contextual cues about normative behavior, and introduces tensions in users' selfpresentation in terms of their identifiability and the cues their profile contains relative to their behavior.

What are you doing on Tinder? Impression management on a matchmaking mobile app

“…In comparison to dating websites, dating apps ask users to provide limited information for potential matches, namely, a number of photos and an optional small amount of text (Blackwell et al, 2015;Gudelunas, 2012). I distinguish Tinder from dating websites because it is a location-based dating platform available only as a mobile app.…”

“…Dating apps are also referred to as 'location-based real-time dating' applications (Handel & Shklovski, 2012) or 'People-Nearby Applications' (Van de Wiele & Tom Tong, 2014) as they draw on the location of the user in order to provide matches in one's geographic proximity. Location-based dating apps may facilitate users meeting face to face and potentially forming a relationship (Blackwell et al, 2015;Ellison et al, 2012), which could increase impression motivation.…”

“…Researchers describe this as identifiability or the ease with which an online identity can be connected to a known person (Blackwell et al, 2015;Woo, 2006). Due to this possibility, Blackwell et al (2015) say users have 'an incentive to present in an attractive, but plausible, light' (p. 6).…”

“…Personals (Ellison, Hancock, & Toma, 2012), Match.com , and OKCupid (Zytko, Jones, & Grandhi, 2014). Recent work examines Grindr, the matchmaking app geared toward men seeking men (Birnholtz, Fitzpatrick, Handel, & Brubaker, 2014;Blackwell, Birnholtz, & Abbott, 2015;Brubaker, Ananny, & Crawford, 2016;Gudelunas, 2012). Research is emerging on Tinder user awareness of privacy issues (Farnden, Martini, Raymond, & Choo, 2015;Stenson, Balcells, & Chen, 2015).…”

Mobile Masculinities: An Investigation of Networked Masculinities in Gay Dating Apps

“…Furthermore, the geographic focus of these apps transcends the boundaries of virtual spaces and real-world (Bumgarner, 2013). Gay dating apps can only be accessed via mobile phone, expanding the social opportunities of users by visibly revealing other users nearby (Blackwell & Birnholtz, 2014). Of scholarly importance is the way in which gay males utilize these apps to negotiate their masculinities amongst each other.…”