Is Online Dating Becoming Work?

The Honolulu Star Advertiser (the largest daily newspaper in Hawaii!) recently published an article titled "Working for love: Online dating is starting to feel like a second job". This article focuses on several people who are devoting more time and effort to online dating than the layperson like myself might expect. The article is inspired by a study by John Cacioppo, a University of Chicago professor of psychology. Cacioppo found that between 2005 and 2012, more than 34 percent of married couples met online, outstripping work and friend introductions (a combined 26 percent).

The first subject, Alejandro Peña, is a 24-year-old who works as a business analyst for a tech company and uses at least six separate dating apps up to 13 hours a week. Peña averages two to three dates a week, but has gone on as many as five. Peña's approach has become so methodical, the article suggests, that he has trouble keeping track of the women he's dating.

But while Peña finds his approach enjoyable, others tire of the effort that they put into online dating. 41-year-old Jonathan Zwickel says. "I want to believe I’m being proactive in my dating life... [but] I know in my heart of hearts that’s BS." Alternately drawn to and repulsed by online dating, Zwickel goes through phases of using apps and then deleting them, referring to some encounters as "contrived and forced and uncomfortable."

Frankie Rentas, 33, points out that online, it’s easier to reject potential partners before meeting them. "Because of that," he explains, "I have to be very careful with what I am putting out there and how I represent myself." This ties into some ideas we learned in class, namely that in computer-mediated relationships, chemistry appears richer and may develop faster, since both users have a more selective self-presentation than they would face-to-face. Similarities are magnified, and differences are easily ignored.

Eric Klinenberg, a New York University professor of sociology, says, "The interface we use for dating is the same interface we use for work. So many people spend their workdays sitting in front of a screen... that when they come home at night and find themselves in front of an online dating screen... they are just repeating the drudgery." Klinenberg refers to both processes as containing "mind-numbingly dull data entry and analysis."

I'm not totally sold on the premise that dating online is becoming a second job. Or, at least, that it is any more of a job than face-to-face dating. As the article points out, face-to-face speed dating is comparable to a fast job interview, which is probably more unappealing for most than an online conversation. Furthermore, online dating can be less expensive than face-to-face dating, where dinners, drinks and/or movies can put your wallet on a diet. People like Peña may be too entrenched in their computer-oriented jobs and their intense online dating strategies (6+ dating apps, seriously?) to really know the difference between work and fun. I align more with someone like Zwickel, who finds online dating sometimes appealing and other times sad.

To me, dating should be more fun than work, and I haven't reached the point where it is the opposite. Online dating is still open to some unpredictability, which can, as we discussed, be dangerous. But with this unpredictability leaving excitement to be found, I'm not convinced that online dating is becoming work.

Furry Fandom As Identity Conceptualization

In the past week we’ve learned a lot about identity. Identity is seen as a symbolic marker, and traditional view of identity as unchanging and singular has been replaced with a contemporary view that sees identity as more flexible and fluid. Furthermore, identity is both personal and social, and one individual’s identity can be formed by how they think others see them: the idea of the looking-glass self.
 

Identity play is the concept of pretending to be something else, which can free the player from constraints. Enter the furry community. A new article from The Guardian focuses on the role of identity in the furry subculture.

Furry fandom is often dismissed as simply a sexual fetish, but this is a misconception. Social psychologist Kathleen Gerbasi says this view "really doesn’t represent the reality [she] see[s] in the fandom.” In reality, furries can be as sexual or not as any other subculture.

Samuel Conway is a chairman of Anthrocon, a convention for all things anthropomorphic (including, of course, furries). “Furry fandom is unique among fan cultures in that we are not consumers, but rather creators,” he says. And it seems that furries are creating identities that they feel they may, in fact, need to have. In a study, 29% of furries reported experiencing being a “non-human species trapped in a human body".

Fursuit makers put serious effort into their work and their suits can sell for thousands of dollars. "Master fursuit maker" Sarah Dee explains the furry lifestyle: “What draws people in is that they can create this character which is a better version of themselves,” she explains. “It’s fun to just be silly, to use your imagination. To not have to conform to what people think being an adult is like.” For most, Dee believes, furry fandom is more about escapism than anything else. "It gives them anonymity to just be who they are and act how they want,” she says. 

So furries use identity play to free themselves of the constraints of being a "normal" adult, and in turn create "a better version of themselves". Almost a third of them identify as non-humans feeling "trapped", so surely their fursuits must relieve a fair amount of anxiety and personal discomfort. The constraints they are thus freed from suggest more than just "play" in their identity construction. Also, when they gather as a community (the last Anthrocon saw over 6,000 attendees), their social identity could boost their morale and make them feel like better people. Using the looking-glass self perspective, it makes sense why furries gather in communities: their identity construction is validated by other furries, whereas they may feel shunned or pegged as "freaks" by those who misunderstand the furry subculture (arguably the vast majority).

I only have one small issue with furries: I don't support the use of real fur to make costumes or dress. I think the fur trade is often harmful for real animals. Still, plenty furries simply can't afford intricate costumes and use something simpler like fake fur. Otherwise, this article, combined with theories of identity conceptualization learned in class, really help me to understand why furries do what they do. Sure, their subculture is unconventional and it isn't particularly inviting to a normie like myself, but it is creative and fairly harmless. If furries feel more comfortable constructing their personal and social identity as animals in costume, I say more power to them.

The Wacky World of ASMR

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is defined in a BBC News article as “a strange tingle in the head caused by certain sights and sounds” and “a growing YouTube subculture”. The discussion of ASMR is a fairly recent phenomenon and it is not wholly recognized, but this BBC article claims that these ASMR-triggering videos, where users often whisper or make “crinkling” sounds, help viewers to relieve stress and sleep at night.

On week one, we learned about the communication model. This includes nonverbal communications like paralanguage, the use of voice that doesn’t have to do with words, which is where ASMR fits in. TinyMixTapes.com, when talking about ASMR YouTube videos notes, “the tingling sensation that each piece aims to invoke comes from a combination of often delicate, fragile sounds, while the narrator uses whispering as their primary method for communicating actions or signals to their audience.” They were covering YouTube user softsoundwhispers’s video titled “ASMR Facemask – Festive Cranberry Face Brushing”. If you watch the beginning of the video, you’ll note that the user, Jenny, speaks in the aforementioned “delicate, fragile” whisper that is intended to trigger the ASMR response. It doesn’t really matter what she’s talking about, it’s how she’s talking that matters. If this were just a makeup tutorial video, the YouTube user would speak in a normal tone instead of a whisper.

What I find fascinating about these ASMR videos is the way they use paralanguage to illicit a very specific response, and how that response can vary from what I’ve read that others feel (relaxing) to what I’ve experienced (heightened discomfort). In short, I think these ASMR videos are scary. The unease inspired by the whispers and tones recalls something out of a David Lynch movie, or the creepy disembodied whisper of “sweet girl” that Nina hears in Aronofsky’s ballet horror Black Swan.

Another instance of ASMR that caught my attention was “Lonely at the Top”, a song (if one could call it that) featured on Holly Herndon’s album Platform, released last year on 4AD, one of my favorite music labels. Since the album was covered on some of my favorite music websites, and I follow 4AD on social media, I approached the album. Although Herndon’s music is totally inscrutable to me, it is kind of awesome that she devoted a whole song on her album to the monologue of ASMR specialist Claire Tolan. I challenge you to listen to this track for more than 10 seconds without feeling uncomfortable. I am not sure if Herndon’s approach is subversive or has some hidden meaning, (like I said, shit’s inscrutable), but I believe this to be the first intentionally ASMR-triggering piece to be featured on an album in the history of music.

Back to the BBC article, the writer traveled to Sheffield to partake in an ASMR study where he met someone who shares my discomfort. He says PhD assistant Theresa Veltri “finds many of the videos frankly rather creepy - and rather sexual”. Of course we must consider the implications of whispers and how they operate as an example of paralanguage in the communication model. Whispers can be relaxing, or creepy, or sexual. Or maybe two or all three at once. The world of ASMR seems to achieve this bizarre combination.