The Tinderization of the Internet

the point of life is other people. I agree with David Rudnick’s diagnosis that we’ve moved from “digital dualism,“ falsely asserting the Internet was “not real life,” to what he calls “digital prime,” realizing the Internet is perhaps the most space we have. But this means there will be a new insistence that URL serve IRL—not replace it.

People want to use social media to meet other people—not to win the social analytics game. No one cares how many people you matched with on Tinder. No one cares how many followers you have on Twitter. Did you find love? Did you find sex? Did you find a friend? These are the questions that matter.

My dear friend Jordan Richman reminded me last year—”It doesn’t matter how many followers you have. It matters who follows you.” This is certainly a truism to live by. It’s something young people seem to be realizing more and more by the day. Being back in New York, I’ve noticed young people seem disinterested in follower counts—perhaps to the poin... See more