Transcription
Good day, all. Welcome back to the show for men. I'm your host, Gman, today. Bit of a different one. I saw this news post come across on my feed, and I thought, "Oh, listen to these birds." Settle down, will you? I'm trying to record. All right. Now, this one's called "Bumble to lay off one-third of its workforce as dating apps struggle."
Guys, there's an ongoing, um, battle between me and these birds outside my window here. I find it very interesting, uh, that the dating apps are now on their decline. Um, I'll talk about why I think the reasons are, but let's just jump into this. As always, guys, if you want to listen to this video without me ranting, carrying on, as always, links in the video description.
The company behind Bumble is the latest to join a growing list of dating app providers to lay off hundreds of employees. The Texas-based online dating platform plans to lay off about one-third of its workforce, a move that could save up to $40 million US for that company. And a month earlier, Match Group, who owns Tinder, Hinge, and OKCupid, also announced plans to cut about 13% of its workforce.
So, what does this mean for Hopeless Romantics turning to these dating apps for that? I'll tell you what it means. I'm going to talk about a few things in this video. A few different themes here, guys. As I talk about the corporate world, no one cares about you. You are literally a number on a spreadsheet; you're a unique, um, employee ID number, and the moment things sort of go down, you very much could be put in the crosshairs.
I know the video is not exactly going to be about these guys, but they're going to have a few themes I'm going to talk about, and I talk about all sorts of things on this channel, more specifically relating to men. And what's a big part of men's lives is our work, is our identity, is the thing that we do to exist, to sustain ourselves. A lot of this going around at the moment. A lot of this going around. The world is cooked in this aspect that they can just, what, get rid of 30% of their, just cut the workforce to save $40 million, but also throw, um, you know, many different people's lives into disarray at the flick of a pen.
That we're joined by Trina Orchard. She is an anthropologist and associate professor at the school of wealth studies at Western University, and she's also the author of *Sticky, Sexy, Sad, Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps*. Trina joins us from London, Ontario.
Thanks for taking the time to be with us.
I'm happy to be here.
All right, so we got some femo-looking chick here who's going to say it's all about probably men's fault. I didn't—I'm going to admit I didn't watch this whole video. I want to watch it live with you guys and react to it on the fly. Let's talk about the dating apps. Uh, let's talk about Bumble. I'll tell you about my experience, um, on Bumble and how it started off really good, and then it started just going downhill over the years as I put in more features and just, you know, made it pay to, you know, pay to play, so to speak, in every single aspect of it.
So I started going on Bumble. Uh, I just gotten separated. So, as many men do, it's bull out of the gates straight onto the dating apps. Um, looking to get some clunge, looking to smash some backs out to medicate yourself more or less from the [ __ ] storm you're going to be in, i.e., divorce proceedings. So, a lot of guys go and do that, myself included, to distract yourself.
So, one of the dating apps, specifically Bumble, I thought it was quite good. Um, I got heaps of action, um, off Bumble, heaps of connections, uh, met lots of really good people, met a lot of not so good people, but they started changing the functionality and they started adding in all these premium services. So, so functions that were part of the unpaid version were more and more being migrated over into the paid version. So, you more or less couldn't use it for free. So, I'm not sure how it stands at the moment, but but back then you could swipe. I think it was like 50 people a day, or I I don't think it even was a limit when I first started using it. And I speak to Larry, my mate Lazer, he's on it at the moment. He thinks it's something like 20 a day if you don't pay for it. And more or less it's heavily marketed that you need to sort of pay for these spotlights and all this sort of thing to get any attention from women. Um, they paygate your likes, your matches, who you match with.
So why would guys go and use dating apps? So I said I had fun using it because back then they didn't have all that. They had, yeah, they had the premium membership, but that was, you know, you can play around with all these filters and stuff like that. Stuff that's pretty useless really. It's probably good for women because men, we don't care. We'll just take what's what's going. But but women, yeah, they'll have a hundred different filters they want to put on men. So I guess they'll pay for that [ __ ].
So over the years they just kept—it's like any platform, right? It's good, good. They get a whole bunch of users on it, and then they start reducing the functionality of it. They start reducing the enjoyment factor of it. And so then you, a lot of guys feel just about forced to pay. Now you don't have to do it. You're going to get a lot less action if you're um an average guy who doesn't pay. And when I say action, I'm not talking about actually meeting in person, but I'm talking about being exposed to women to even match with you on the app.
So guys, go on there. I think attitudes a few years ago from women were a lot different to what they are now because everyone's used to living on these dating apps, and back when—even when I started on it and it had been around for a couple of years before I got on it—but people are a lot more carefree, pretty keen to meet up, um, and just have fun with it. Yeah, they're always those people who are no more fun and no more games and all of that. But what I've realized now is, especially—well, not now, well, I realize now based on the um TikToks and all those sort of things that I see, but even about four or five years ago, um, when I just had enough of it was not fun for me anymore. All right. It was not fun for me. Women have been on it for too long. Um, they're bitter and jaded on it, um, their requirements from women had increased exponentially to the point where I would have considered myself pretty well put together. I was finding it hard to even get average-looking chicks to give me um the time of day. Like women I literally would not look at in the street a second time that I'll try and match with, not even consider matching you or match with you and not talk to you. That on top of women instantly wanting to have um speed-running guys into relationships.
So they treat Bumble, they treat all the dating apps, women have ruined dating apps because women, they they they—dating apps are just to meet people. Dating equals have an action. It's double fisting. It's clapping cheeks in the back of the V and behind the cricket ground. That's what dating apps are for. And if something, you know, develops from there, which it does in a lot of cases, all right, people like each other. Things go from there. Women want to want to gate that experience to setting up a whole laundry list of expectations from men to jump through hoops to even be potentially considered to go on a date with.
As we know, guys, I've made hundreds of videos about this. Women living in complete delusion thinking that men are going to go on there. Uh, Mr. Prince Charming is going to come along and sweep them off their feet on a dating app, and they're not going to accept any less than that. Even though they've been on there for 10 years, like I don't know how long Bumble's been around. It's probably been around for 10 years. Institutionalized thinking that they still have a shot at getting a high-value guy who's got his life together to save him off there. So that's why I stopped using it. It just wasn't fun anymore. It was not fun. And not because you just didn't get any action, first date or whatever. It isn't so much that. It's the whole experience dealing with a lot of women that were bitter, a lot of women that were demanding, um, and just blatantly delusional to the point where you get just frustrated. You go, "I cannot I do not have the energy. I'm 35 and I can't be stuffed with this anymore because Kuowato," we know who Kuowato is. He's a steaming hot nuclear dim sim in your pants, lads. He's no longer driving the ship, right? He's no longer in control. When you start getting a bit older, you start thinking with the big head. And you think to yourself, "What am I getting out of all these hoops? What am I getting out of all these waste of time, rejections, uh, high demands, having to [ __ ] spend money and go on stupid dates that you would never want to do?" Guys hate dating for the most part. "What am I getting here? A little bit of clunge that most most likely many other men have had already, and I'm jumping through hoops and paying a premium for it?" No thanks.
Now, I'm not saying I'm not a big tail guy or anything like that. I have women in my life. I just don't do this anymore. I had a good fun, had a good run with it, but it got to a point where the return on time investment was very small. Okay, so let's start with those growing number of layoffs we're seeing at a number of different dating platforms. And in part, that's because they are seeing fewer revenues and fewer users. Yeah, people are are swiped out. Um, dating apps are increasingly expensive. There's more bots; there's more, um, sort of swindler type behavior happening, and fewer people are using them in meaningful ways, and so I think a lot of folks are just thinking it's not worth their time and effort, folks, i.e., women. Good old swindler.
Okay, so let's talk about that. So that she is referring to that Tinder swindler guy. Um, Chad and Bry behavior, essentially guys who are going to lie. Why do these guys even exist? Okay, why do these guys exist? Because they're just feeding into the fantasy of women's huge high-bar standards. The Bry and the Steo and the Tinder Swindlers, I know that was an extreme case. They're Skynet. They just learned at a geometric rate what women respond to. And so they pretend, they promise the world, they say they're going to do everything, they never deliver. That's all you have to resort. You have to resort to lying about certain things. Otherwise, you'd be cut off at the knees with these interactions with women. It exists because of them. And guys are going, "Well, you know what? They want all these things that generally the average guy is not going to have. I'm just going to lie and make out and posture myself in a way that makes me look far better than what I am. I'll say that I'm also looking for a serious relationship, that I'm looking to have a family soon, I want to get married, all these things to get these women on the hook." They never deliver.
So, I don't know what came first, the chicken or the egg. I think the chicken, i.e., these women's standards, men have just had enough of it and they turned to the dark side. They become a dark Jedi. They think, "What have I got to do?" Because if I be a normal nice guy, if I be a good man like all these women want and say they want, I actually get nothing. It's counterintuitive. You got to be like, you got to be the opposite of that.
So what happens, guys? My mate Larry, I always talk about Larry. He pays for these apps. He's going—he he stopped paying now. So he is like literally a statistic in this. So he was the guy paying. Oh, it's some stupid amount. That's like 40 bucks a week or something stupid like that. Go look at the prices. I had a look at them. Incredible. He's paid 40 bucks a week to go on a dating app to get re-rejected. Nuts. He had Bumble and um he was paying for, and he was getting nothing out of it. So now he's just resorting to trying for free. He's getting the same attention anyway. As I said, guys, if you're not going to get much action for free, you're going to get not much action but pay for it; the only action you get is the money going out of your wallet, uh, into Bumble's account.
So, these are the guys, the guys who thought they could get a shot. They realized that it's just not worth it. They don't want to pay for it. It's too expensive. Everything's expensive now. Money is not going as far as it used to. And it's just not fun. So, if you're paying 40 bucks a week for going out with girls and hooking up with girls or even meeting a really nice girl, I'm sure guys would be happy to pay for that. But you go there to deal with women who live in fantasy world. All right, J. About halfway, guys. I'm ranting today. I'm just in a mood. Hopefully, you can deal with that. Um, halfway. So, consider subbing to the channel if you like my content. If you're new and around here, let's keep going, dudes.
So maybe not worth their time and effort, but they're still looking for a connection. Do you think we're seeing sort of a shift in how people want to approach that search?
Yeah, absolutely. Especially post-pandemic, people are pretty hungry for person-to-person interactions, and younger generations don't have a lot of experience in that particular way of interacting, but they're hungry to learn, and they're they're increasingly the ones who are putting down the dating apps more so than older generations.
That's right. Us old boilers, us millennials, dating apps are full of us. Guys who have been chewed up and spat out, women who are chewed up and spat out, men now looking for another victim. It's full of us. But that makes perfect sense to me. Uh, younger people not wanting to use these. I hope it's I hope it continues to happen. I hope these apps collapse. They're very—I was talking about Bumble. I was looking at Larry's Bumble, and I cosplay as Larry on there. If you look at all the different things that they ask you to fill out for the profile, like what are your social justice causes, you know, Black Lives Matter and trans rights and um stop Asian hate or something was one of them. I was looking at it. I was like, "What what is this rubbish? Why do they make you put this [ __ ] on there?" Because it's a leftist, woke-driven platform. I guys just want to go on there to meet chicks to get the steaming hot dim sim relieved, not to virtue signal. It's just it's just not cricket.
And so in terms of sort of that hunger to find a different path to find love, what are we seeing an increase in? Where are people going then?
So, there's a whole lot of options that um people can choose instead of dating apps, and that includes things like speed dating, running clubs, or sort of the new dating app in a lot of ways. Um, there's also dating coaches. Um, we see different, um, AI platforms being used as well. Um, people are going to parties where they can pitch their friends. Um, so there's lots of alternatives that are emerging.
Now you talked a little bit about what's leading to the burnout, and certainly we've seen in terms of the numbers, for example, a research firm, uh, Sensor Tower in 2024, uh, said that worldwide monthly active user growth for dating apps slid, uh, 10% year-over-year, um, so it's not just a North American thing; globally, there are fewer people who are turning to these dating apps. Yeah, I think it's also a product of sometimes technology—ology is has run its course. You know, this was the first version of dating apps. So, I think the industry is kind of in a bit of a crisis, or it could be seen as a phase to pivot and really reflect on what reviewers and users are saying that they want instead. So, so this this is the this is the balance, right? The balance is off. Men don't want to give all this effort anymore. And women always want an increasing amount of effort and attention from men on the dating apps. That's what's causing this problem. It isn't the app. It isn't the technology itself. It's the experience of it and the expense of it.
Think about the average dude who will probably be the guys paying for this. As I said, I've got a case study. One of my best friends does it, and he even told me how he was feeling about it. So I understand—very frustrated that women don't give him the time of day. Very frustrated as well that he's paying for it and is not getting much of a benefit. Very frustrated that he goes on there. He's quite naive, and he goes on there, and he gets his hopes up, and he talks to women, and he plans dates, and a lot of the time they flake on him like last minute. Everyone's had that. But I've had that happen to me hundreds of times probably. You get flaked on. Like it's all part of the game. You get flaked on. Guys get excited. They get a girl on the hook. Um, they're naive to women's nature, how they interact on these dating apps. They think that this is a rock-solid plan. And the chick, you know, [ __ ] excuse my language, but stands him up, ghosts him, cancels last minute. Just no respect. No respect. And I think that's what a lot of guys who would be the main people paying for this. This is why they're not paying anymore and resulting in these dating apps having to cut their workforce because the experience for men, the main people who use it, is not good. It's like going on to paying for something to get, um, misandrist treatment. Just about you got no rights as a guy on there. Um, I've been banned off Bumble before, twice on two different phone numbers over the years. Did I deserve that? I don't think I did. But I got reported. Um, and the next thing you know, I don't know if I got reported or not, but the next thing you know, my my account has been disabled, so I must have been reported. There was no recourse for me. They're not interested in looking at my case. I emailed them and said, "Hey, what's going on?" No, it was you've been flagged by a user. There's going to be no investigation or due diligence. We're just cutting you off. Happened to me on Hinge as well. But on Hinge, I got flagged for financial—uh, someone said that I was doing financial fraud. That's all I got. Someone flagged me for that, and they just took it at face value without even looking at the chat logs or anything and banned me. So hang on. You want me to go on, use your dating app, which is leveraged very highly towards the feminine side, right? For females, you can be cut off at the knees at any moment. You're almost a second-rate citizen on there, and they expect you to keep paying for it. Yeah, I don't think so.
It's not necessarily the end of dating apps, but it's really up to the companies whether or not they're willing to be, um, flexible in adapting their product. You know, of course, uh, as an anthropologist, you also study sort of the trends of human behavior and how things can swing. And certainly we know that there was or there has recently been sort of this move towards digital detox and getting offline. And perhaps part of that might be moving towards a more organic way of finding people to connect with. Do you think we're seeing the pendulum swing in that different direction towards a more kind of what some might call old-fashioned, uh, meetings and connections? Not just romantic relationships, but relationships in general.
Yeah. And again, especially post-pandemic, I think that was a real motivator. Uh, we were very lonely and locked up and isolated during that time, relying so much on technology, and I think we have, uh, a lot of evidence in our own personal lives about the negative impact that a lot of, um, digital dependency and social media use can bring. So there's no—look, let's be right, there's there's there's bad actors on both sides, right? You got Bryces and Steos lying and being toxic and all that sort of [ __ ], but the majority of women are very—I don't
Even like using the word, right? But toxic is probably a good word in this state. Very toxic to men on these dating apps; they're not talking about that. All right, that is the problem here. Guys just get fed up with it. It isn't so much technology fatigue and [__] like that.
The user experience is what people will go and pay for. If your user experience is a negative thing, if it's a negative thing where men are getting, uh, their self-confidence wiped out, they're probably getting mental health issues, self-esteem wiped out. Who is going to want to literally pay for that, let alone use it for free? That's what I want to know. No one's. No one talks about that. Once again, I think, uh, women have ruined online dating. All online dating, should be, all these apps should be, is just a mechanism for you to meet in the real world. Trade a number, like a meeting place, like Facebook or something like that. I like a boomer, like the Facebook, like you know, like just, just something where it's light-hearted. You have a chat and then you work out if you want to take it from there.
Now it is, men have to keep on meeting all these ridiculous standards. You can be cut off at any second. It's just women's attitude towards men on the dating apps. But women have said to me, "Oh, you use, you use women up, like you inviting them to your house or whatever it is like that." It's like, what are you talking about? Women are the worst at that. They're on there looking for, for targets, for marks, to, uh, meet their own female agenda, i.e., locking some idiot down very quickly off a dating app, getting pregnant, getting married, speed-running the whole process really quick. Read all the profiles on there. Go on there, read the profiles. As I said, I was reading Larry's profile. You got chicks like 39 years old saying they want to settle down and have a baby. 39. Like, what? I think that ship has sailed. Just about every profile says it. So, they're getting worse. They're getting worse. It's just the value proposition is just not there.
So, yeah, let's go use Bumble, which is basically also for the free user, like someone who might convert, have gone and absolutely blown up that experience to the point where I think, as I said, Larry was telling me, you can't barely even use it. Forced to pay. All right, let's hear this check out. And so people are wanting to sort of push back against that, um, and look at more analog ways of connecting. So do you think this is sort of going to be a long-term change or shift that we might see? I think it will be. I think dating apps are going to be around for a while, but only if the companies sort of pivot and sort of respond to what users think. I think AI is going to be increasingly part of our romantic landscape. But then I also think that the more traditional or, uh, old-fashioned way of doing things is also here to stay. So people have a wealth of choice actually.
Now Trina, I want to thank you for your thoughts on this today. We appreciate. I want to thank you for your useless thoughts on this today. So what you're saying, uh, the traditional way, which is men bending over backwards for women in person, taking them on dates, wooing them, mustering up the courage to go and approach them, there's been a huge social shift, men don't want to do these things in the most part as much as they did in the past, that's not coming back, they're talking about AI, where's it going to go, all right, I'll put my tin foil hat on, guys, AI be there, will literally be like deep fake, make AI realistic girlfriends and guys would just, um, have those or they'll put, it'll be like, have you seen Demolition Man? Demolition Man, they put the headset on and they get in there and it's like virtual but it look, feels and looks real. That'll be what, what happens. I know it sounds crazy.
A lot of men are realizing that women are just not worth chasing. The majority of women are just not worth chasing like that. And a lot of women want men to chase, lay down money, time, and effort without even knowing who they are. Think about all the times you've tried to meet up for a coffee or, um, meet up for a walk, meet up in person. It's not even a date. And they're angling towards, no, no, you got to go to a restaurant or you got to go and do something that costs money. Women are using men up for dates. They're extracting resources out of men for fun when they're bored. People think I'm mental. This happens a lot. If a woman likes you, guys, she's not going to make you go and, and, and risk losing that interaction by being obnoxious and saying, "Oh, no. I don't do coffee dates. I only do things in nice places like restaurants and give you a list of the ones that she likes." And you can pick one and come back to her with suggestions. I had a woman do that to me once. She goes, "Oh, I like these few." She sent me a few links. She goes, "Why don't you look at the menu? Um, and tell me what you might think of it and then yeah, we'll, um, we'll go there." Obviously, guys, that was going to be on my dime. That is the female version of a Bry and Steo pump and dump. Get some idiot to go and spend a couple hundred bucks on a nice date out where most likely nothing's going to happen and rinse and repeat.
Cuz women get a lot of validation out of that. See, men get validation out of the action, right? The thrill of the chase, all that sort of stuff. Women get validation out of men spending resources on them. I'll tell you a story. I don't know this girl anymore, but I used to know her quite a few years ago. She was one of my former victims. She used to tell me very openly that she would use men up for dates when she was bored. If she was hungry and didn't want to spend any money, all right, she would get guys to go out. She would put up with them for half an hour or an hour. Get a meal and then block and delete them after, or text them straight back. Oh, hey, thanks, but I don't think there was any spark. We've all been on the receiving end of that. That's what they're doing. They want you to go out on dates with them, spend money and be okay with having a 90, probably rejection rate for the average guy. For the average guy, I'll talk about my mate Larry. He's back on the apps after he was going out with some single mom who was a complete basket case. But now he's back on there. He's been on, he's told me about four or five dates and he goes and he does this. He goes and he buys, he has brunch with them and he pays for that or he gets some, you know, coffee and something to eat and he pays for that every single time. Every single time, by the time he gets home and he's, he's driven home from wherever he's gone, he has a message saying, "Thanks, but no thanks. I didn't meet the spark." I know the spark wasn't there. The chemistry wasn't there. Yeah, but thanks for paying. That's why guys don't want to do it.
I know I'm ranting today, guys, but these women have just got no idea. No idea why guys stop using these things or they use them for a bit. You might have some, some success and then you hit a rough patch and they go, you know what, you get off it for 6 months, then you go back on, use it for a bit, but the guys aren't paying anymore and this is all, this is translated as I was just saying, this guys are waking up en masse, that it is translating into the real-world dating interactions. Guys don't want to pay for dates. That's why we got all these women on the internet and TikTok complaining, uh, that men want to go for coffee and walk dates. If I, if I was to be honest, I think a coffee and walk date's a very genuine first meeting. You wouldn't call it a date, so to speak. It's a first meeting. Just like the first date is that they wanted a restaurant. It's a meeting. Why would you buy someone lunch that you don't even know? I, I don't get it. I don't get why you would do that. You don't meet some random bloke out on the street and say, "Hey, dude. You want me to buy you a chicken parmesan for lunch?" No expectations, you don't do it.
Anyway, let me know you think about all this. Do you think these dating apps will survive? Do you think it's going to go into AI territory? Guys using these apps, the lonely guys, especially guys who can't get much attention. Do you think there will be a resurgence in in-person meeting? Let me know your thoughts. Appreciate it, guys. Once again, for those of you who have stuck around and just listened to me yell at the sky today, I'm in the mood for a rant. So, you got one. Uh, see you in the next video. Once again, have a great day. Cheers.