Dating apps: towards post-romantic love in digital societies

Abstract

This article contributes to studies of implicit cultural policy in platformised societies by offering an empirical study of dating apps and the ways in which they are operating a digital enclosure of the practice of dating. Reflecting on a qualitative research project conducted in different phases from 2017 to 2021, I analyse subjective experiences of dating apps in the aim of deciphering some traits of digital culture of love’s structure of feeling. I focus on the role played by the algorithm as a libidinal object invested with merit and blame, and capable of (re)producing a libidinal economy within the app itself. This is characterised by the gamified alternation of validation and humiliation, which gives the subject the possibility to deal with these feelings in the de-personalised virtual space of the app. Engaging with the app, the subject aspires to foster a careless conduct, in which moral codes traditionally associated with personhood are lifted. I argue that the policies implicit within the logic and agency of dating apps shape the techno-utopia of post-romantic love: a risk free, painless and efficient interaction, deprived of the complications of embodied romance.