I Cruised Tinder for the First Time at Pitchfork Music Festival

I joined Tinder for the first time the Wednesday before Pitchfork Music Festival weekend, with the hopeful intention of meeting artists attending the festival and interviewing them. That's it. I had no other motives, I promise. The closest I got to reaching that goal was finding (and not matching with) Molly Soda and a Vice intern that will remain unnamed. I also got someone named Brooklyn, which is a sick joke that the developers of Tinder snuck in there just to fuck with me.

With my flight delayed three hours, I jumped the gun and downloaded the app in LaGuardia Airport. The proximity to Long Island resulted in a lot of matches with doctors, engineers, and lawyers, or as they're more commonly known, successful adults. I wasn't sure how to relate to these people so I decided to hold off until I got to Chicago to use Tinder again.

Once I got to the festival, I tried being discerning and thoughtful in my approach to finding a match. No one responded so naturally I wallowed in my own rejection for a while and got sad until my friends came and cheered me up. They suggested I change my approach:

After that, I started getting a lot more matches! The two most common ‘likes’ I had in common with people were Urban Outfitters and the xx. I didn’t do any metrics, but I’d say one in every five people had either one or both of these in their profile, with "Free Things To Do In Chicago" being a close third. Other popular profile additions were Anchorman quotes—apparently everyone in Chicago is kind of a big deal! After a while, I expanded my messages to include musical tastes in hopes that it would help get some more interesting responses. It didn't work.

As I cycled through the lineup and asked people if they were into any of the bands playing that weekend, I started to lose hope with every additional “nope.” People on Tinder really prefer using “nope” over just about everything else. There were a few exceptions, though—some that gave me hope:

Did I say hope? I meant nope. Just kidding!

It got pretty grim after that. More like move that nope.

I think this was the only really successful interaction I had, and I guess I screwed up by not trying to interview this person IRL. I also noticed way later that I spelled “Kendrick” incorrectly, which probably gave this person the wrong idea.

So no, I didn’t meet anyone on Tinder during Pitchfork. Music festivals are for music and not for arbitrarily meeting people on the internet (yeah, right). I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that shamelessly trying to manipulate matching algorithms for the sake of a good angle doesn’t seem to pan out, especially when you suck at Tinder as much as I do. When you’re trying to reach out to the cold, soulless world in hopes of making a personal connection with a stranger, stick to warm, human mediums, like Twitter. Also try getting to know people instead of making dumb rap jokes. I may have gotten my article, and you clicked on it, but we’ve both gained a lifetime of regret. The moral of the story is that Pitchfork is great for music, while Tinder only serves to remind you that you will die alone.

Gabriel Herrera wants you to know he feels bad introducing shit into the universe. He's on Twitter — @gabrielherrera

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