The typical user of OkCupid is a web savvy, under 30, single person. Most messages I receive are from people seeking higher education. When searching through potential matches, it is possible to limit the search by factors such as: race, age, distance, relationship desired, body type, and gender. A friend of mine argued in his thesis that race selection for potential partners should be considered racist. I wonder to what extent using certain factors to limit the search field is inhibiting our knowledge and tolerance, and which factors should be considered offensive?
People on the site seem really offended by being pigeon-holed and assigned percentages. I have found that I too do not trust OkCupid to assess my compatibility with a potential mate. It's almost as if people get to know each other better by meeting online, but also have the ability to craft an identity that does not represent who they are in real life. Some people never transition from searching online to actually mixing their online and real identities to interact in real life.
I think you make a great point. In theory, being online allows us to escape our real identities, which sometimes serve to limit the types of people we interact with. But often, we construct similar online identities and continue to filter the types of people we meet online.
ReplyDeleteAs for the race filter, initially I agreed with your friend that it is 'racist' to filter matches by race. But, it could also be useful for people who want to exclusively meet people of other races. I don't know how OkCupid works, so maybe that's not possible. And some may argue that it's equally racist to only search for people of other races. But I think there's value in having the ability to ensure that one interacts with people of other races. Many social networking sites are dominated by whites, so it could be useful to filter out the dominant group if you're intentionally trying to interact with a minority group.
I'm intrigued by the fine line bounding racism. Would it be wrong for me to want an Iranian partner, out of an interest for have shared cultural/social customs, values, language, and more? (My boyfriend's half-Cherokee/half-Korean, just FYI) Or for instance, I've heard UT has a GraduAsian event to "celebrate your achievements with your graduating class in the Asian/Asian American community." Does this promote diversity or division? It could be argued both ways, but this goes to show that perhaps OkCupid is trying to respect cultural preferences, not necessarily race biases.
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