But there were consequences no one had foreseen. That dark side includes sexual harassment, misogyny, body shaming, and abetting a lifestyle curated by laziness and desire. One Australian study found that male Tinder users scored higher on measures of narcissism and psychopathy than non-users.
Wolfe Herd, 33, believed that good online behavior could become attractive if encouraged and rewarded. She eventually agreed, on one major condition: Women must be given control.
What if women made the first move, and sent the first message? In heterosexual match-ups, only women can make first contact and have 24 hours to send a message after swiping right, while men have 24 hours to respond to a message. When same-sex people are matched, either person can send a message first.
A month after the app was launched, Wolfe Herd was working with three others out of a two-bedroom apartment and it had been downloaded , times. Building the infrastructure for Bumble turned out to be the easy part. Reversing gender roles in was met with resistance by the early women adopters but Wolfe Herd was able to position this new approach as beneficial to everyone.
Traditional dating dynamics were toxic, she said, and rejection tended to fuel aggressive male behavior. And it really balances it out. From the outset, Wolfe Herd has seen Bumble as a constantly evolving brand more than an app, tech company, or social media platform. As it has scaled, Bumble has also steadily increased safety measures and content moderation to prevent predatory behavior. Explaining its ban on shirtless bathroom-mirror selfies and gun photos , Bumble said it was trying to close the gap between what is deemed acceptable online and what is tolerated face-to-face.
