The World of Images in Dating Apps: “Dictatorship of Clichés” vs. Naturality

Abstract

The myth “women prioritize socioeconomic status whereas men value physical beauty” is continuously reproduced. The heterosexual online dating literature that addresses image production highlights the dominance of this gendered and heteronormative binary in self-presentations. Examining how heterosexual individuals use dating apps, this study focuses on image consumption and how profiles as the products of this beauty-status binary are perceived. Using video interviews and reenactment techniques to analyze users’ practices of swiping, i.e., mate selection, this study also offers a novel research method to the literature. The findings demonstrate how the so-called binary creates a dictatorship of clichés and how individuals affectively, though partially, respond to this visual bombardment by feeling an attraction toward naturality. It underlines that bodies are not simply shaped and controlled by cultural institutions, norms, and laws but also respond to the situations and environments in which they find themselves. This paper invites future studies to focus on what images can do to bodies and how bodies respond to them and break the beauty-status myth rather than expose it.