in what respect is Instagram a dating app for women or anyone? Because it's a social media site primarily used by younger-ish people? by that metric any site that features young people is just an over-glorified dating platform. (not to say that this is a negative implication, dating websites are great to some extent)
Do you believe that young people are capable of using social media platforms for things other than base urges or is that something only middle aged people are able to accomplish?
This wasn't meant for you, but the other guy deleted his question, so here we go.
Instagram is a photo-sharing application at it's core.
So when you share photos, you're sharing your lifestyle. You're advertising. This is especially prevalent down here in Miami. So much so that people oftentimes at clubs don't exchange phone numbers; they exchange Instagrams. The women can see by your Instagram posts what kind of life you live and whether or not they're interested. You can see by their Instagram who and what they are. If you go to it and you're inundated with a ton of booty pics in string bikinis and a little string barely covering her titties, hanging on for dear life, you know she's advertising, "I am a hoe and I do hoe things." If you go to her Instagram and you see a lot of landscape photos, ancient monuments, etc., you know she's advertising, "I like to travel and have a genuine interest in culture."
If you go to a man's Instagram and he's got photos of himself stepping off a private jet, photos of him on a sailboat or a yacht smoking a cigar with a label that clearly reads Arturo Fuente Opus X and holding a glass of amber liquid with a bottle that says Louis XIII on it, photos of himself in a sharp suit leaned up against his Aston Martin DB11, he's advertising, "I am a successful, wealthy man who lives a life of luxury." If you go a man's Instagram and there's pictures of his woodshop, some photos of a new chest of drawers he crafted, a picture of him sitting by the lake with his trusty Labrador retriever lovingly sitting by his side, he's advertising, "I'm a down-to-Earth craftsman who enjoys the serenity of nature."
And then all these people go sliding into one another's DMs, as the cool kids say...
If you don't believe that, start listening to the podcast Blocked and Reported with Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal. I've been listening since episode 29. They're on episode 131. They report on Internet ridiculousness and culture-at-large. A shocking amount of stories eventually have the phrase "slid into the DMs" in them.
It's clear to me that Instagram is being used as a dating platform as much as it is a storytelling or photo-sharing platform. And I don't think Meta should do anything about that at all. It's a dating platform on the down-low. I think that might be a good thing.
In addition to that, it's pretty common on other dating platforms to say something along the lines of "don't use this much, it's better to reach me on instagram".
Part of that is looking for new followers, part of that is using IG as the primary social portal for their lives.
I can see your argument, and it's certainly an interesting way of looking at it, but this just explains the "dating app" part of your assertion ("... it's a dating app for women,"). It's missing the explanation on why it's a "dating app for women".
Because even now in our so-called "sexually liberated" world, men make the overwhelming amount of approaches that indicate sexual interest. Put simply, "Men make the first move."
In a way, Instagram is the digital / technological pinnacle of the "Personals" ads from newspapers of yesteryear.
I wonder if Rupert Holmes will update "Escape" with the line, "There was this post that I saw... on my Instagram feed..."
Do you believe that young people are capable of using social media platforms for things other than base urges or is that something only middle aged people are able to accomplish?