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Social Media Shows Hints Of A Sexist Culture At Tinder

This article is more than 9 years old.

Is Tinder the sort of place where a woman executive might be routinely bullied, called a "slut" and a "whore," denied credit on the grounds that she's "a girl" and subjected to a variety of other forms of sexism?

In the wake of Whitney Wolfe's lawsuit alleging all that and more, the IAC-owned mobile dating service is about to come under a microscope. Early indications are it's not going to hold up well.

Exhibit A: This January 2013 tweet by Justin Mateen, the co-founder Wolfe says was her primary tormentor. It's a screengrab of a post by the site Barstool Sports comparing Tinder and the the Facebook app Bang With Friends. "Listen chicks are sluts," reads the post. "They love getting stuffed as much as we love stuffing them....Long story short, chicks need an excuse to tell people why they use Tinder."

"Funny write up in Barstool today," is Mateen's gloss.

Exhibit B: The LinkedIn profile of Tinder co-founder Jonathan Badeen, who lists his title as "Vice President of Engineering, Co-founder & Digital Pimp @ Tinder."

[Update: Mateen has removed "Digital Pimp" from his profile. What you see above is a screen grab.]

Exhibit C: Tinder's official Twitter account shared (and Mateen reposted) this YouTube video by the comedy duo Nice Piece. It's about a man who's told he has to leave his wife and repopulate humanity with a mate he must choose from Tinder profile photos.

Tinder declared it "the funniest video we have yet to see" [sic].

In her lawsuit, Wolfe says there was virtually no supervision of Tinder at the corporate level of IAC. I'd say that's apparent.