Tinder went ballistic in a Category 5 tweetstorm this afternoon, posting a long response to a Vanity Fair story that largely blamed it for starting a "Dating Apocalypse." In the 'storm, Tinder called out Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales, the author of the story, who then responded with a few tweets of her own.
Looks like these two are swiping left.
-@VanityFair Little known fact: sex was invented in 2012 when Tinder was launched.
Our actual data says that 1.7% of Tinder users are married — not 30% as the preposterous GlobalWebIndex article indicated.
It's disappointing that @VanityFair thought that the tiny number of people you found for your article represent our entire global userbase 😏
Next time reach out to us first @nancyjosales… that’s what journalists typically do.
The Tinder Generation is real. Our users are creating it. But it’s not at all what you portray it to be.
Tinder creates experiences. We create connections that otherwise never would have been made. 8 billion of them to date, in fact.
Tinder users are on Tinder to meet people for all kinds of reasons. Sure, some of them — men and women — want to hook up.
Just like in real life. And in the many years that existed before Tinder.
But we know from our own survey data that it’s actually a minority of Tinder users.
Our data tells us that the vast majority of Tinder users are looking for meaningful connections.
And our data also tells us that Tinder actually creates those meaningful connections.
We have tons and tons of emails from people that have all kinds of amazing experiences on Tinder.
It’s about meeting new people for all kinds of reasons. Travel, dating, relationships, friends and a shit ton of marriages.
Talk to the female journalist in Pakistan who wrote just yesterday about using Tinder to find a relationship where being gay is illegal.
Talk to our many users in China and North Korea who find a way to meet people on Tinder even though Facebook is banned.
Talk to the many Tinder couples — gay and straight — that have gotten married after meeting on Tinder.
Or talk to people that have made some of their best friends on Tinder.
We love ALL of these #SwipedRight stories. Tinder is simply how people meet.
The ability to meet people outside of your closed circle in this world is an immensely powerful thing.
So we are going to keep focusing on bringing people together. That’s why we’re here. That is why all of us at Tinder work so hard.
If you want to try to tear us down with one-sided journalism, well, that’s your prerogative.
You could have talked about how everyone on Tinder is authenticated through Facebook. And how we show users the friends they have in common.
Or you could have talked about how everyone on Tinder is on an equal playing field.
Users can’t message each other unless BOTH people are interested in one another.
You could have talked about how users build a Tinder profile that expresses who they are.
Or how millions of Tinder users have connected their Instagram accounts, so potential matches can learn more about them.
This all creates social accountability so that Tinder users treat each other well.
Instead, your article took an incredibly biased view, which is disappointing.
But it’s not going to dissuade us from building something that is changing the world. #GenerationTinder
Sales responded:
@Tinder not clear: are you suggesting journalists need your okay to write about you?
In a statement to the New York Times on Wednesday morning, a Tinder spokesperson said the company had "overreacted":
While reading the recent Vanity Fair article about today's dating culture, we were saddened to see that the article didn't touch upon the positive experiences that the majority of our users encounter daily.
Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted.