Culture Bumble will ban users for being ‘fat-phobic’ or ‘transphobic’

Bumble will ban users for being ‘fat-phobic’ or ‘transphobic’​

By Hannah Sparks
January 28, 2021 | 5:57pm

Dating app Bumble is putting the kibosh on body shaming.

The company announced Wednesday that the app would begin throwing out members caught using “language that can be deemed fat-phobic, ableist, racist, colorist, homophobic or transphobic.”

The new restrictions will apply to users’ direct messages as well as those with profiles that openly discriminate against different body types.

“Body shaming is not acceptable on or off of the Bumble app,” a statement from Bumble reads. “For those who may not know, body shaming means forcing your opinion of a ‘good body’ onto others.”

An algorithm has been set up to flag words and phrases associated with “body shaming,” then assessed by a live moderator, according to the Guardian. Warnings will then be sent to users at their first offense — along with sensitivity-training materials — before being banned entirely.

The Austin, Texas-based company wants to foster “a kinder, more respectful and more equal space on the internet,” said Naomi Walkland, who runs Bumble’s overseas marketing division. “Key to this has always been our zero-tolerance policy for racist and hate-driven speech, abusive behavior and harassment.”

A 2016 survey by WooPlus, a dating app for plus-size women, found that 71% of 1,000 users who called themselves “curvy” had also been fat-shamed by men on other dating apps. More broadly, a 2020 Pew study found that 33% of women on dating apps had been called an offensive name by another user.

Fans of women-centered app Bumble — which urges lady users to “make the first move” — say the move is another reason why they love the company.

“I’m very interested in seeing how this works, and also EXTREMELY happy to see it launch,” tweeted music journalist Courtney E. Smith.

Some are calling for other dating apps to take note.

“Maybe @Grindr could follow suit. That app is a cesspit of toxicity around the body and race,” said one fan of the change.


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[Jimjamflimflam]

I'm so glad I'm done with this dating shit. When a guy couldn't get a date, it was his fault. He had to:
Hit the gym.
Get better clothes
Work on his social skills
Get more general hobbies
Etc

Anything that said the fault is with you and you need to fix it.

When fatties and trannies can't get dates. They start to educate and ban their users for -phobia. Can't blame guys who give up and do the mgtow shit.

 

[haurchefant]

I honestly think this is a good thing because it drives normal people off dating apps. Which everyone should be doing anyway because dating apps are terrible and you only encounter narcissist selfie takers on them. It's not like the pickings are great either.

Your local community is still the best place to meet people.

 

[NyQuilninja]

What's a Bumble?

 

[Dysnomia]

I'm so glad I'm done with this dating shit. When a guy couldn't get a date, it was his fault. He had to:
Hit the gym.
Get better clothes
Work on his social skills
Get more general hobbies
Etc

Anything that said the fault is with you and you need to fix it.

When fatties and trannies can't try dates. They start to educate and ban their users for -phobia. Can't blame guys who give up and do the mgtow shit.

You will find my FUPA sexy.

You will take my girldick.

We've sped towards a society where preferences aren't allowed and anything non-inclusive is mercilessly ridiculed until anyone who speaks up is afraid of making the tiniest squeak. It kind of sounds like an alternate version of Brave New World.

Everyone belongs to everybody else and it's selfish to think otherwise.

Can we just end this Earth already?

 

[Constellationzero]

“Body shaming is not acceptable on or off of the Bumble app,” a statement from Bumble reads. “For those who may not know, body shaming means forcing your opinion of a ‘good body’ onto others.”

Aaand of course, like facebook, twitter, tumblr, and everywhere ELSE IdPol Jackasses have infected, this statement goes only ONE WAY.

 

[Shiversblood]

One time I messaged someone on a dating app, and I didn’t read her profile so I didn’t see how it said she has three kids, she asked me what a huge turn off was so I said a woman having three kids with three different men, and she got really really angry at me and started going off on me and was mad I messaged her without reading her profile and said she has three kids with three different men. so I responded by saying that her having three kids at age 25 was not even the worst thing about her I said her weight was the thing that was the real biggest turn off because she was honestly just too fat so I wasn’t too interested to begin with. But I guess I would be banned now for being fatphobic now just for simply having a honest conversation.

sometimes people who are fat honestly need to be told that they are fat. They won’t lose any weight if everyone keeps telling them they look great when in reality they look horrible because they are 100 or 200 pounds over weight

 

[Dysnomia]

Aaand of course, like facebook, twitter, tumblr, and everywhere ELSE IdPol Jackasses have infected, this statement goes only ONE WAY.

It's still ok to look at a naturally thin woman with naturally large breasts and claim she is an anorexic plastic surgery junkie and totally couldn't have been born that way.

Hell, they even eat their own. Hilarious because they are always eating.


So called "small fats" who are still fucking fat as hell and not just a little chubby mind you, are called out on their small fat privilege by women who haven't seen their dying beetus toes in 20 years.

 

[Sped Xing]

Yeah but women can also make profiles on other dating apps and choose men. Otherwise how would the men get anything other than sausages? Everything might as well be Grindr.

But if there's a bunch of fatties and troons on Bumble it's probably a regular laugh riot to browse through.

You misunderstimate me. I meant "Bumble expects women to be the ones to put themselves forward." That's literally what Elliot Rodger thought. Women don't normally operate that way. They want to be chased, not to chase.

 

[HarblMcDavid]

A 2016 survey by WooPlus, a dating app for plus-size women, found that 71% of 1,000 users who called themselves “curvy” had also been fat-shamed by men on other dating apps.

In 2021 an unrelated study conducted by Operans Oculus found that 100% of spheroid shaped people labeled themselves "curvy".

 

[UselessIdiot]

Bumble is shit because no matter how many women you match with, none of them start the conversation.
In the two times they have in my personal anecdotes it’s been with the line “I don’t like starting so you start”

Dating apps will never replace irl dating just because the users are shit.

That's funny because Bumble was intentionally created to allow women to be the ones who initiate conversations, but they still don't want to do so even when the ball's in their court. How is the app even still around?

Doesn't matter if it's a "feminist" app or not, you can't just alter typical human behavior.

 

[haurchefant]

That's funny because Bumble was intentionally created to allow women to be the ones who initiate conversations, but they still don't want to do so even when the ball's in their court. How is the app even still around?

Doesn't matter if it's a "feminist" app or not, you can't just alter typical human behavior.

Bumble has two functions, one is for dating and the other is for networking friendships between women. It caters to an existing niche, I know a college friend who met her husband through Bumble. They've been married for four years and are expecting their first child in a few months. I expect that Bumble runs more from the friendship aspect but its successfully gotten couples together as well since it's explicitly a space for women who are willing to initiate conversation and pursue relationships under their own power. Just because its niche doesn't mean those people don't exist and its stupid not to try and get their market share.

What makes this a stupid decision from Bumble is that it drives the attractive and normal people remaining off their platform to go other places which means they are giving up a significant chunk of their market share, which is women actively asserting themselves. Not very girl power and not very financially smart to give up your core audience like that.

 

[Buttigieg2020]

I bet they'll still allow profiles where the woman says you gotta be 6'5+


Those are usually the easiest chicks to get laid with. You just go along with it and at some point they'll bring up their cat. Mention you wanna meet their cat and they'll invite you to their place. Then you just go from there

So you use the pussy to get the pussy?

Bumble is almost entirely fat chicks, so the only change here is that whalers might accidentally get banned for rejecting the wrong blob.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

So you use the pussy to get the pussy?

Bumble is almost entirely fat chicks, so the only change here is that whalers might accidentally get banned for rejecting the wrong blob.

It works. You don't have to go out of your way to be a total dangerhair or anything, but just agree with them on politics and crap. I've banged a few pretty good looking women just by doing that

 

[FrickinFrackinFruckin]

This bumble would love to eat fatties.

 

[Blimp]

I have yet to find a dating site where the overwhelming majority of userbase was men who fatshame women right off the bat, because it's women of all shapes fatshaming alerting men of their preferences right off the bat, even formerly-good sites like Okcupid have had this entitlement problem with a certain segment of their userbase since forever, and the staff/blogs/journalists really only care about instances like the article, which acts as a batsignal for even more toxic online daters looking for a site to be enabled on. On guys, we're talking bare-minimum chubby shape options like "a little extra" being a dealbreaker for people even bigger, as it's mysteriously not "beautiful" on guys with people you'd expect to use fatophobia in casual conversation. Okcupid used to give you the option to BLOCK any incoming messages from fat people if you bought A-list




Most platforms used to give you all the tools to find out just how much other fat people hate the idea of dating other fat people, then slowly started to remove them the more their userbase noticed, so you can always assume one of these sob stories is by someone who'd rather seek-out potential fatshaming Chads (who only matched because he's horny and likes your tits) instead of continuing the conversation with the normal guy who's actually intro'd something about your profile, and it isn't exactly hard to get immediate matches with normal guys whilst girl on these apps. The goal is to find that one weird hot guy who has some sort of fat/tit fetish, which is why fat girl profiles usually have some sort of search-friendly porn keyword like "BBW", "curvy", "goddess", "thicc", and whatnot, the obligatory warning about how you need to leave if you AREN'T comfortable with that is a save

Bumble especially is a site where ladies went to recapture the magic* of Okcupid (for all the wrong reasons), so if they weren't actively going no fatties, they'll just swipe with that mindset instead if they weren't already. Based on everything in the article, I'm assuming all counts of fatshaming were guys pulling the preference card the same way they do to get out of humoring the pre-MCU Chris Pratt who messaged them

 

[Dante Alighieri]

women who are willing to initiate conversation and pursue relationships under their own power.

Which they can do on any platform, in any medium, without it being forced by the app.

 

[haurchefant]

Which they can do on any platform, in any medium, without it being forced by the app.

Yeeeeees but if there is a place for them to congregate and find like minded people then that makes Bumble a centralized location where you can find assertive women instead of having to desperately root around for them on OK Cupid. That's the genius of marketing, if a woman sees a platform where it encourages her to be the to take a step forward than she and people like her will go there eager for a place that suits their temperament.

It's called "marketing" dude, if you gather like minded people into a space where everything is tailor made for their proclivities (like say gathering women who prefer to message men first into one place where they can be marketed to) then you have built yourself a core demographic that you can build a small marketplace around. Niche industries can also lead into other industries and women on Bumble who become the core demographic can influence others onto Bumble and influence them into being more confident and assertive as well.

This is extremely basic and its how companies have built audiences and loyal consumer bases for decades. Jesus Christ, do you people not know anything?

 

[Zero Day Defense]

That's funny because Bumble was intentionally created to allow women to be the ones who initiate conversations, but they still don't want to do so even when the ball's in their court. How is the app even still around?

Doesn't matter if it's a "feminist" app or not, you can't just alter typical human behavior.

It's not just about service intention, but also the culture that each service ended up developing.

I've been advised that Bumble is "more classy" than Tinder.

I have yet to find a dating site where the overwhelming majority of userbase was men who fatshame women right off the bat, because it's women of all shapes fatshaming alerting men of their preferences right off the bat, even formerly-good sites like Okcupid have had this entitlement problem with a certain segment of their userbase since forever, and the staff/blogs/journalists really only care about instances like the article, which acts as a batsignal for even more toxic online daters looking for a site to be enabled on. On guys, we're talking bare-minimum chubby shape options like "a little extra" being a dealbreaker for people even bigger, as it's mysteriously not "beautiful" on guys with people you'd expect to use fatophobia in casual conversation. Okcupid used to give you the option to BLOCK any incoming messages from fat people if you bought A-list

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Most platforms used to give you all the tools to find out just how much other fat people hate the idea of dating other fat people, then slowly started to remove them the more their userbase noticed, so you can always assume one of these sob stories is by someone who'd rather seek-out potential fatshaming Chads (who only matched because he's horny and likes your tits) instead of continuing the conversation with the normal guy who's actually intro'd something about your profile, and it isn't exactly hard to get immediate matches with normal guys whilst girl on these apps. The goal is to find that one weird hot guy who has some sort of fat/tit fetish, which is why fat girl profiles usually have some sort of search-friendly porn keyword like "BBW", "curvy", "goddess", "thicc", and whatnot, the obligatory warning about how you need to leave if you AREN'T comfortable with that is a save

Bumble especially is a site where ladies went to recapture the magic* of Okcupid (for all the wrong reasons), so if they weren't actively going no fatties, they'll just swipe with that mindset instead if they weren't already. Based on everything in the article, I'm assuming all counts of fatshaming were guys pulling the preference card the same way they do to get out of humoring the pre-MCU Chris Pratt who messaged them

Thanks for reminding me about just how bullshit this is. Nobody gives a damn about men being "fatshamed" or whatever-- not even the men themselves, since they just go to the damn gym if they're so sensitive about being overweight. Meanwhile, they've taken it upon themselves to protect the feelings of women who have no willpower to put down the ice cream and go out for a walk, even as they discriminate against men in their weight class.

Yeeeeees but if there is a place for them to congregate and find like minded people then that makes Bumble a centralized location where you can find assertive women instead of having to desperately root around for them on OK Cupid.

Again, in practice, most of the people you see on Bumble are also using 2-3 other dating apps with different marketing strategies. Additionally, they're no more assertive on Bumble than they would be anywhere else. The "women text first" rule ends up being a formality-- they either ghost until the timer runs out or they send out a simple "hey", forcing the guy to do the heavy lifting anyways. Because that's what texting first is-- the heavy lifting to set the tone of the connection, and they usually end up ceding that responsibility to the guy unless he's chad enough.

 

[frozenrunner]

I'm not surprised that this was coming, Whitney Wolfe Herd is a former Tinder co-founder and founded Bumble after she left the company, after leaving Tinder she sued Tinder for sexual harassment which ended in a $1 million settlement in September of 2014.
From Wikipedia:
Bumble has been considered as a "feminist Tinder."[51][52] Its founder has confirmed this identity, calling the app "100 percent feminist," although she has attempted to distance the app from Tinder in interviews.[49][4] Wolfe Herd shared in an interview with Vanity Fair the concept behind the app: "If you look at where we are in the current heteronormative rules surrounding dating, the unwritten rule puts the woman a peg under the man—the man feels the pressure to go first in a conversation, and the woman feels pressure to sit on her hands... If we can take some of the pressure off the man and put some of that encouragement in the woman’s lap, I think we are taking a step in the right direction, especially in terms of really being true to feminism. I think we are the first feminist, or first attempt at a feminist dating app."[49]

I was wondering which of the dating apps are worth using. Uh, thanks for steering me clear of this one

 

[Wilhelm Bittrich]

I was wondering which of the dating apps are worth using. Uh, thanks for steering me clear of this one

Glad, I could help. Have a nice weekend.