Guys taking pictures with Tigers, Elephants, Giraffes on Dating Sites…really?

Men are really jumping through hoops to get dates in today’s social media, validation driven world.

It’s gotten so bad for guys that they have now resorted to Tiger pics in the hopes that a tinder swiping female will give them some love.

As WSJ reports…

Hans Rasmussen wanted to meet women online. On the advice of a friend, he went wild with his profile photo on the dating app Tinder, choosing a picture of himself crouching next to an adult tiger. The photo made him seem worldly, he thought, even dangerous.

Gimmicks do work at times, but what does this say about your value. Do you need props to sell yourself? Apparently lots of men do, even if the prop can bite your head off.

Enter the tiger. On popular dating platforms like Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid, thousands of daters have turned to big cats to help them catch the eye of potential mates. But while tigers are scarce in the wild—the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies tigers as an endangered species—they’ve become a nuisance online, users say.

Some Tinder users estimate they encounter tigers in one out of every 10 profiles they view. Tinder users browse photos of potential mates on their smartphones, swiping right when a photo catches their eye and swiping left to indicate lack of interest. If two users right-swipe one another, the pair can chat within the app.

Here’s the deal with online dating apps like Tinder and sites like OK Cupid, its a lose-lose for any man that is not extremely attractive, photogenic and high value. For women, online dating is a great way to get exposed to greater samples of men (men by the thousands) messaging, clicking or swiping photos for a chance to open up some sort of dialogue.

The hard truth however, is that the guys that always secure the date (online and off) are the one’s with value, confidence and game. Tigers may be a good gimmick at first, but it will only take you so far…

Alana Massey, 28, of Brooklyn, N.Y., said she had been open to dating someone with a tiger photo on Tinder or OkCupid. But the more tigers she saw online, the less original the photos seemed, she said. She now compares tiger photos with writing “I love to laugh” on a dating profile—a cliché, and, for her, an automatic dismissal.

In the end, with sites like Tinder where the photo is everything, the 20% of alpha “hot” males win out time and time again. The rest of the men pining for a women to message them are simply validation on speed for ladies online.

Tigers may signify strength and dominance, or suggest the hunt—all cues male daters might wish to convey, said Catalina Toma, assistant professor of communication science at University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose research focuses on self-presentation in online dating. A tiger snapshot from an exotic location may also signal that a person has the means to travel, Dr. Toma added.

“Guys think, ‘If I can tame a tiger, then I’m worth dating—and I could tame you,’ ” said Patti Stanger, a professional matchmaker and star of Bravo’s “The Millionaire Matchmaker.”

As for Mr. Levin, he has banished the tiger and gone back to a more reliable trope of male desirability: a photo of him playing an electric bass.

Playing an musical instrument…now that’s the red pill way.

References:

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