Bumble

About

Bumble is a mobile dating application which serves as a matchmaker for people based on their proximity in location. Founded by the former co-founder of Tinder, the app shares many similarities to Tinder in layout and functionality. The most significant difference between Tinder and Bumble is that on Bumble, women must message their "matches" first, and if a person does not message or respond within 24 hours, the match disappears.

History

Bumble was founded by Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe Herd after she left the company.^[1] She had sued Tinder for sexual harassment, agreeing to a $1 million settlement in September of 2014. After pairing with several former Tinder employees, Wolfe Herd launched Bumble in December of 2014. As of November of 2017, the app was reported to have over 22 million users. Forbes magazine has estimated the company's worth at $1 billion.

Jack Posobiec's Bumble Account

On January 24th, 2018, Twitter user @deborahlindsey tweeted screenshots of an alleged Bumble dating app account owned by alt-right figure Jack Posobiec. She added the caption "is @bumble_app still a feminist dating app or the place where white nationalists / nazis go to cheat on their wives?" The post (shown below) received more than 1,100 retweets and 4,440 likes in 24 hours.

Later that day, @deborahlinseyl tweeted several correspondence with Bumble's customer support service. In the messages (shown below), Bumble says that they would pass along her complaints to the moderator team at Bumble.

Later that day, Gizmodo reported that Posobiec claimed the profile was "clearly some troll" and that he has "a hot eastern European wife, as everyone knows."

According to BuzzFeed, a Bumble representative confirmed the account in question was tied to Posobiec's real Facebook account, but that the Bumble account has been inactive since 2016.

That day, Posobiec tweeted that he would be launching an FBI investigation into the "fraudulent account." He wrote, "I am filing an identify theft report with the FBI over fraudulent accounts made of me online. The criminals behind this will not get away with it, they will be found, and they will be brought to swift, exacting justice. This criminal fraud stops now." The post (shown below) received more than 2,400 retweets, 6,900 likes and 2,400 comments.

Bumble AI Features

In 2024, Bumble announced a series of new changes and modifications to the application, intended to make it more competitive and leverage artificial intelligence to increase its effectiveness. In a video with Bloomberg Live, Bumble leader Whitney Wolfe Herd outlined her vision for an AI-fueled Bumble (seen below) which received 880 views in a day on May 10th.^[5]

Herd argued for the adoption of AI in Bumble, saying:

Our focus with AI is to help create more healthy and equitable relationships, and that also starts with yourself. How can we actually teach you how to date? How can we help you show up in a better way? For example, you could in the near future be talking to you AI dating concierge, and you could share your insecurities: 'I just came out of a breakup, I have commitment issues,' and it could help you train yourself into a better way of thinking about yourself and then it could give you productive tips for communicating with other people. If you want to get really out there, there's a world where your dating concierge could go out and date for you with other dating concierges… (audience laughs) no, no, truly, and you don't have to talk to 600 people. It could scan all of San Francisco for you and say, 'here's the three people you really oughta meet.'

The video was reposted to X on May 10th by @tsarnick, who received over 2,400 likes and over 6,000 reposts in a day for it.^[6] Subsequent viral posts of the video also performed well.

Responses to Herd's claims about the future of Bumble led to consternation. @BDSixsmith saw it as a symptom of a bleak world for single people (seen below left) earning over 53,000 likes in a day for comparing the situation to 9/11.^[7] Others compared the idea of an AI "dating concierge" to a Black Mirror episode, including @deirrajf (seen below right) who earned over 200 likes in five hours on May 10th for critiquing the Bumble AI concept.^[8]

Features

Users log into Bumble via Facebook. On the app, they select several pictures to display of themselves and also have the option to link their Spotify account. Once logged in, users can then swipe through potential romantic partners. A right swipe indicates the user "likes" the person, and a left swipe indicates "not interested." Users also have three free "backtracks" which allows them to view a person they may have accidentally swiped left on. Bumble offers a freemium service, where users can pay to have access to premium features, including the ability to see who has swiped right on them and a Rematch feature which will rematch with a user if the allotted 24 hours to respond to a match expires.

Reputation

Because of the control the app gives women with their matches, it has been described as a "feminist" dating app, which the company embraces.

Banning Gun Photos

On March 5th, it was reported that Bumble would be banning users who post pictures with guns.^[2] They will be handling pictures of guns in the same way they handle photos including nudity or hate speech. Users in the military or law enforcement will be exempt from the rule if they are in uniform in the picture. The announcement came a month after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting amidst many companies clarifying their relationship towards guns and the NRA. The news was covered by media outlets including The New York Times,^[2] GQ,^[3] and The Verge.^[4]

Popular Bumble Messages

Despite the app's efforts to provide a friendlier experience for women than other dating apps, women still report negative interactions with men on the site. For example, a post to /r/niceguys from February 3rd, 2018 gained over 24,000 upvotes (shown below, left). A similar post to /r/iamverysmart from March 2nd, 2017 gained over 24,000 upvotes (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References