Imagine: you spend weeks successfully chatting up 20-year-olds on Tinder only for some rude person who actually knows you to get you age-banned. It just doesn’t make sense. Sure, the app changed to being 18+ in 2016, but for some people, Tinder is their only choice. Why can’t kids use Tinder? By making their platform only available to legal adults, Tinder is demonstrating catastrophic ageism.
First of all, it’s unrealistic to expect teens to meet anyone any way other than digitally. It’s not like there’s some common place that a bunch of kids go to every day where you meet new people. I hate to sound like a broken record, but if you just picked up your phone and swiped around you’d be able to easily find someone. I could even find someone while sitting in class, surrounded by people I’d never want to be with! It’s just so much easier than expecting us to do normal high school things, like attend sporting events or school functions where we dance and talk to people.
A key point that worries the platform is the safety of minors on the app. The smallest age range you can do is 18-21, so theoretically, I, as a 16-year-old, could be talking to a 21-year-old, who thinks they’re talking to an 18-year-old. It’s true, five years is a little bit of an age gap, but older guys are kind of the thing right now. I know my 15-year-old friends try to stay away from older guys because of the “age of consent” or whatever, but if they’re interested, who are we to not let them hit it and quit it? It’s mutual interest, even if we are giving that 21-year-old a felony charge.
I’ll admit it, I’ve had a few weird instances where really old men will put their age as younger and swipe right on me. I usually swipe and match with them just to see if they’re sugar daddy potential, because college is seriously expensive. They’re usually pretty nice people (except for when they ask for foot pictures).
I honestly don’t get what the big stink is. Being too young to drive, drink, smoke or have sex doesn’t mean that my friends and I don’t deserve love. Despite what people may think, it’s a dating app, and we don’t use it just to hook up. This is minor rights erasure, and we demand the same chance to find digital love.
