A practice in Danish Tinder chats: Opening the interaction by raising the prospect of meeting.
What is it about?
Analyzing a collection of authentic Tinder chats between men and women, the paper focuses on instances where the first message between two participants who have 'matched' addresses the prospect of meeting. The paper shows an array or ways this is done, arguing how this is a method that works to indicate and invite the negotiation of compatibility and using ambiguity and playfulness, participants manage unknowns and insecurities in their attempts at pursuing engagement from the other party, and potentially a date.
Why is it important?
Online dating has become a widely used practice for getting in contact with and pursuing intimacy of various sorts. However, it is a bit of a black box what goes on between participants when they chat on the app. This paper analyzes authentic Tinder chats from a Danish context. As a type of resemiotisation of dating from face-to-face contexts to online contexts, that potentially contribute to changing perceptions and practices related to love, intimacy, dating life etc., analyzing these practices are essential to get a deeper understanding of relationships between communicative afforcances, including speech, embodiment, written language, co-presence, etc. and how specific social practices unfold.