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The dating agency video was the mainstay of ’80s and ’90s sit-coms – a black VHS tape nervously shoved into the player would project a grey, noise-speckled image of their possible dream date onto the TV screen. Nervous under the camera light, they’d try to be serious, or funny, and either way credible. Then their time was up and the next uncomfortable but terribly real face would flash up on the screen. Edward. 41. VHS repairman.

It’s curious to think that this system was completely ridiculed at the time. A questionnaire plus a dating video ‘interview’ to make sure you click on an intellectual and also a personal level. And now that dating apps are totally ubiquitous, you have to ask yourselves: has 2000s technology improved upon ’80s design or, in fact, made it worse?

Aesthetics are not always attractive.

Seeing grainy footage of someone sweating under halogen lights in some drab ’80s office might actually be the sexiest photo on Tinder right now. Why? Because, hard as they try, they cannot hide. It’s unrehearsed, almost benaughty live. Like a date.

The almost hallucinatory self-delusion of users of apps like Tinder springs up when all the emphasis of a match is dumped on a profile photo. …

Is your dating app profile really you? Would you even want it to be?Leia mais »