Is Bumble’s Algorithm Filtering Ugly People?
The Disclaimer
My thoughts are from a software engineer’s perspective. I don’t have access to Bumble’s code so this is speculation but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize an apps behavior.
The Question
In case you’re unfamiliar with Bumble, it’s a dating app similar to Tinder. Pictures of potential matches are shown & you swipe right if you like them & may want to have sex or marry them OR swipe left if you want to send them to the dungeons.
The question at had as the title says is: Is Bumble’s Algorithm Filtering Ugly People?
Now I don’t think they’re filtering out the unattractive completely but there seems to be some strong sorting to show them DEAD last and DISPLAY hot people first.
There is a big clue that filtering based on people’s looks is going on with Bumble and it doesn’t take a software engineer to notice it. What do you look for? Simple. Try the app & ask yourself, do most of the candidate look attractive initially to you and then later on, less so. Compare that to random matches on a site like OkCupid. (At least they have an option you need to choose to filter by attractiveness)
The Problem
If this is the case for Bumble & they’re discreetly filtering, it’s a problem. Not because it’s discrimination against the average / below-average looking or that it’s hypocritical for an app that claims to empower women – it’s a problem because it provided a “false” convenience.
You might think it’s convenient that the attractive folks are shown upfront but that’s really false because what ends up happening is everyone sees them too and so those cute profiles are flooded with matches and are less likely to respond to you. That’s bad, sad & frustrating.
Guys are used to the rejection and some unfortunately will indirectly end up with “trigger happy swipe right thumbs”. Swiping right on almost every pic to make it a numbers game in their favor & end up responding to few women that match with them. These guys respond to one’s they actually are attracted to & ignore the excess matches resulting from their happy thumb tic.
Women who aren’t used to as much rejection as guys get all bummed out when they message a super hot guy that showed up early and don’t get responses. Why, most likely, he got lots of matches too due to the sorting algorithm showing his profile to tons of women. And the more women that see him, the more that will swipe right on him. This applies vice versa / women’s profiles.
A Self-fulfilling prophecy. The rich get richer.
The Solution
Most likely what Bumble’s doing is showing you candidates first that many people swiped right on and organically it will likely be due to them being attractive to the public.
So the solution would be to simply not do this.
While it might seem less exciting not all the initial pics look like models, it’ll be more realistic & the response rate for both attractive & average folks will normalize.
Dating is hard enough. Don’t play games Bumble!
The Last Word
It’s already a challenge to find intellectual attractiveness as well as physical so there’s no need for an app that is mainly focused on the physical to inject algorithm features the heighten the shallowness of it.
Let me know your thoughts on this matter and/or your experience w/ Bumble.
Update!!
The podcast whyohwhy interviewed me on this topic. I’m in episode two! Turns out, my theory wasn’t crazy after all!
http://www.whyohwhyradio.com/hotter-on-bumble-part-1
http://www.whyohwhyradio.com/hotter-on-bumble-part-2
The Author
I help people with no experience become software engineers quickly. Programmers usually start off with salary’s 100k or more.
If you’d like to learn how to code visit: http://reynaldadolphe.com/fullstacklab
If you have questions, email me at AskReynAld@gmail.com
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Paul A Whitehead
February 24, 2017 @ 4:56 am
I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve been a member for four days now and would say that 95% Of the women I have seen have been very attractive if not dropdead gorgeous. I have even had some these ladies show up twice, even within minutes of each other. I don’t know if they’re testing us to see if we are dogs or if we are honestly decisive. I honestly think they are just trying to convince us that all the beautiful women are on bumble, and like you said, I had to start swiping left on as many as possible so as not to get myself in trouble by constantly swiping right! They need to change it! It will be a raccoons age before any of those women even see my swipe because how many scores of men have swiped right before me? And what are my odds against some of those guys? It needs to be tweaked.
admin
March 3, 2017 @ 8:52 pm
I hear your pain & feel the same. It’s lots of work swiping already for guys and their approach seems to make it tougher w/ their algorithms. I wouldn’t be surprised if as a result, the popularity of auto swipers for apps like this rise. I’m putting more effort to meeting in person via meetup.com on activities I’m interested in.
Joe B
August 8, 2017 @ 2:45 am
Your hypothesis matches my experience with Bumble to a tee and is the reason I even Googled it (to see if anyone else had the same suspicions).
Rich wild
September 9, 2017 @ 1:22 am
Bumble even enhances the girls photos automatically to make them appear more attractive when they are not
Jenny
May 16, 2017 @ 6:48 pm
I just wanna say thank you! I’ve being feel really down about my online dating experience and this article helped me feel less alone. I certainly have experience what’s described, I match with maybe 15% of my swipes, get super excited when the guy looks like a supermodel, and then feel completely deflated and rejected when no one responds, even to witty messages. Bumble, an app that is supposed to empower women, should not work this way.
admin
May 22, 2017 @ 4:50 pm
No problem, Jenny. You’re welcome. Check out this episode I was interviewed on about this topic. I appear in episode 2
http://www.whyohwhyradio.com/hotter-on-bumble-part-1
http://www.whyohwhyradio.com/hotter-on-bumble-part-2
Marc
June 29, 2017 @ 3:24 pm
Laura, now you know the dejecting and frustrating experience men have on these apps who are not “supermodels”
Very few matches, and no women will respond.
You just described how lonely and self esteem lowering the process is for men. Why should it be so easy for you to get a hot man?
Fhj
June 25, 2017 @ 9:35 pm
I think John Nash figured this out well before your time.
Chris
July 15, 2017 @ 10:08 pm
I just searched this theory and found your page, well done you are 100% spot on. I have ‘hit the bottom of the barrel’ so to speak with my searches and although I may not be attracted to those girls, it’s unfair that they place less attractive people last in the searches.
Geoff Martin
July 20, 2017 @ 7:08 am
You’re a genius! Not only did everyone notice on there already but you put together a blog about “the solution” AND
2 whole podcasts on the subject! A business selling sex!? What an outrage! More people wanting to date/have sex with hot people than others, giving them bigger dating pools?! Never has this been a thing! My word I’m apalled.
The first thing in online dating that draws someone to others is attractiveness, so thank you bumble for wasting my time sorting through all the trolls who are on crappier sites. I’m glad I found this joke of a page when I was explaining to a friend how bumble made finding attractive people easier than sites like Okcupid and plenty of f.i.s.h (fat insecure scary hoes). You people are right, you’re not alone… except you are, until you stop the delusions and find your equally unattractive soul mate. Good luck you ugly chumps! 😉
Bob
August 18, 2017 @ 1:16 am
Hmm,
I also became a bit suspicious with the high rate of @hotties” I was seeing as compared to Match. Com fir example. I also happen to be a software engineer. I would like to propose a alternative hypothesis. That is that attractive women are more likely to list themselves on Bumble precisely because they have the ultimate decision maker by power. Unlike Match, where they may be subjected to hundreds of emails from potential suitors, they merely need to swipe left. Also, I have viewed several hundred profiles within my 30 mile limit. Undeniably the vast majority are of a much higher attractiveness quotient (looks+profile) IMHO than Match.
Frank
December 29, 2017 @ 12:22 am
Agreed on all counts. Even relatively basic pattern-recognition skills coupled with healthy (and correct) skepticism made me suspect this very behavior rather quickly. It becomes a positive-feedback loop. From Bumble’s perspective, it increases the average time a male user spends on the app, both because he is emotionally excited at seeing so many attractive women, which is immediately delivering nuggets of dopamine-activation to his brain, and also because swiping right increases his hopes (not the actual probability – just his inner emotional reality lol) of being matched.
The solution – LEFT swipe these vapid duck-face, selfie-taking profiles to do your part in down-weighting them and thus trying to weaken the positive feedback effect. And be cognizant of later profiles that are more realistic. I wouldn’t be surprised at all (actually it’s a virtual certainty IMHO) if Bumble uses fake profiles / bots. It’s all a scam lol.
Ken
January 31, 2018 @ 4:38 am
I knew something was up. It was starting to feel like I was playing a Sims game. Thank you for your insight.
Dom
February 28, 2018 @ 7:35 pm
I wondered if I was just crazy, or if something was different here. I have been all the big free dating apps: Tinder, OkCupid, POF, and I have never seen such a lack of success as I have with Bumble. I’m not a solid 10 (or even a 6) but I’ve got a nice face. On Tinder I get flooded with matches and messages, same with OkCupid until their recent update requiring mutual likes for a message. On Bumble I get only a few matches every few days and out of those one if that will respond.
It’s incredibly frustrating. I know I’m not the best looking. But to be totally shut out takes a huge toll on my already non exsistent self esteem. Not to mention all these model-looking guys I get shown seem generic (how many times do I have to read about Chipotle, working out, and your love of The Office?!) For an app supposedly intent on giving women power, the ones like Tinder seem to offer better chances for women who aren’t blonde, tan, and thin.
Wes
June 3, 2018 @ 4:12 am
I’ve been on a day and I’ve already figured it out exactly what you’re saying. I believe they have more guys using the app for that reason, they front load the good looking girls for a while and then it just completely changes to average looking or below average looking women halfway through. they just do this for guys to keep getting back on the application I would think in the long run they’re eventually gonna lose all those women that are not as attractive they gonna give up they also can do many things to improve people that swipe right for every person if you’re swiping right too quickly they should have a wait time there’s many things that they can do. I believe it they mixed it up which they should do because guys are gonna stop swiping when they start seeing girls that are unattractive so frontloading it keeps these guys on the site and getting addicted to swiping right to the good looking girls so they keep thinking they have a chance so they stay on longer and there’s definitely a calculation with this madness, not even Tinders like this.
Amy
June 4, 2018 @ 11:28 pm
I feel like tinder and bumble both do this.
Konnect Life
July 2, 2018 @ 5:51 am
No, it seems as of Summer 2018, they are no longer filtering “ugly” people. I actually see a variety now, but no where near as “bad” as tinder, yet.
Ann
July 25, 2018 @ 3:50 pm
2017? Still active comments? So:
Oh damn…new to Bumble, at the insistence of friends and within a couple of days I was OMG, they are discriminating against the “not (nearly) as attractive” pool (ugly is such an ugly word) as those that were in my first round of profiles. Initially, I thought I was being punished by Bumble since I swipe left considerably more than right. But I ignored, yet then again with a few days away and a complete recycle it occurred again. I immediately did a search and landed here. Thanks for the validation! And Bumble thanks for insulting my intelligence and shame on you for allowing this to continue. What IS the bar and again, oh damn, where do I fall out?
Kendall
July 28, 2018 @ 8:59 pm
I made this observation in the first 10 minutes. Thank you for confirming I’m right!