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Showing posts from January, 2020

On Jojo Rabbit

I have recently been going through a dispiriting patch with my online dating career, trawling through legions of profiles of probably nice, seemingly banal men on the dating application Hinge. Part of the problem lies in the site's layout. Unlike Tinder, which encourages you to swipe through various profiles, Hinge offers the opportunity to discuss a particular post on a user's profile, as a way of opening up conversation. Users post several photos of themselves, which you can comment on ("Nice photo! I love Italy!"), and they can also fill in replies to various set-up questions, to tell you more about themselves - along the lines of "One thing about me that surprises people is..." or "The worst mistake I ever made..." These familiar set-ups are supposed to encourage interaction and spur amusement, but in reality they annihilate any trace of originality or personality, leading everybody to make the same pat jokes. In response to "the worst mis