Bumble Is Dead — And Humor, With It.

These days, it feels like the dating apps can’t do anything right — but neither can we.

From a 45% drop in share price year over year to the spineless Opening Moves initiative to the May advertising campaign that will live in infamy — it’s been hard not to watch Bumble unravel with a twinge of schadenfreude.

It isn’t the only social tech platform to fall deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of commercialization, gamification, and manipulation, but as a long-time user and a former champion of THE app made to empower the weaker sex in the dating process —

I’ve still found myself asking, “Et tu, Bumblebrute?”

Despite the public outcry against Bumble these days, they haven’t done EVERYTHING wrong. May’s celibacy campaign was a brilliant and relatable bit of advertising — if only for anyone who’s ever been human, single, and even slightly horny.

But in case you missed the whole thing — here’s a recap —

Several weeks ago, Bumble rolled out a commercial that went like this: girl gets frustrated with dating rigmarole, girl joins nunnery, girl lusts for handsome gardener, fellow nun slips her a phone open to Bumble.

A nationwide billboard campaign subsequently piggybacked with: “You know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer.”

It was funny AND true so both sides went crazy, of course — conservatives because of the irreverence of the message and liberals because they thought Bumble was telling women to put out.

Alright, fine — maybe the whole thing was a little tone-deaf.

In response to the outcry Bumble pulled their ads and published a mea culpa. Hail Marys were uttered and penance was granted via donations to domestic abuse hotlines and a dedication of the remaining ad buy to marginalized groups (who may or may not have been harmed in the creation of the original campaign).

The word on the street now is that people are leaving Bumble and other apps in droves in favor of in-person connection. And now they’re taking it to the streets, according to Eventbrite’s 2024 Dating Report. But not on account of a poorly chosen nun joke, I’ll add. As it turns out, consumers don’t love feeling like faceless algorithm fodder — even if they’re single and ready to mingle.

But before you scamper off to delete all YOUR apps (if you haven’t already)— I’m wondering if we’re too far gone.

The other night I went to an actual party — in real life — that meant putting on pants and leaving my house after dark. 30 minutes in I’d already made a a mental list of other things I’d rather be doing — digging trenches, practicing weighted kegels, or unclogging the shower drain.

But when I couldn’t stand the tension any longer (I swear you could cut it with a knife in that near-empty room), I bit the bullet and went up to a stringy, sad-looking specimen staring with laser-like intensity at his phone.

I asked him dutifully if he’d like to sit with my group (“as he waited for his friends to arrive,” I added). But I was unprepared for his reaction. He might as well have shouted “stranger danger” and pulled out a rape whistle — but it’s not as if anyone heard him.

The music was so loud you could hardly hear your thoughts, let alone a lone incel’s cry for help.

At this point, Gentle Reader, you might be wondering if I had any real business engaging in such tomfoolery on a school night, but 36-year-olds have a right to fun, too. So dutifully I assumed my place with the seven other geriatrics who’d been brave enough to show up, self-quarantining on the only dry surface of the dance floor (sandwiched between a piqued-looking Russian smoking an actual cigarette INSIDE and some equally faded-looking tweens waiting in line for the bathroom).

Alone but together we bobbed listlessly to the music, maintaining a 6-foot distance from each other so as not to risk eye contact or any other interpersonally-transmitted diseases. Alone but together we rued two decades of fatal dating mistakes that had brought us here, to this place on this night.

The other day I pored over a Forbes poll that reported the majority of singles today a) think dating was easier before the pandemic but b) crave relationships just as much as before.

I’m not sure how much “harder” dating is now as a result of the pandemic. Maybe we’re all just 4 years older (and a whole lot grouchier). And while there are unprecedented levels of political and existential suspicion, trauma, isolation, and polarization in the mix —

Does ANYTHING in life actually get easier with age beyond learning to say “no?”

In psychology, we’re often taught that all-or-nothing thinking is a trauma response, a distorted binary of the world in which the full locus of human experience is reduced to two cognitive extremes — good and bad.

While we can all agree that there’s no shortage of trauma to go around — dating or otherwise — I don’t think we should lose our sense of humor over it.

As it goes in the Cole Porter song, “Don’t take it serious, life’s too mysterious.”

Bumble is a highly imperfect tool but a valuable one if you’re committed to not dying alone (or dying trying, as the case so often feels like). So until the in-person activities catch up, I suspect we’ll all be back on the apps sooner than later. Which is to say that single as I am right now, with my eggs (and my hopes) on ice in a lab in Chelsea, I’m keeping my faith with the apps and with the “maybe.”

It’s the sweet whisper of “maybe” that’ll have me and my fellow celibates back on Bumble before the month is out; the gentle murmur of “maybe” that will have me reworking my profile (maybe even with current pictures this time); and the quiet promise of “maybe” that will get me to give the apps that hurt me yet another chance.

So as I dream of a newer and brighter dating future for every one of us, I’ll close with a toast: “Next year… next year… may (we all) be off Bumble for good.”

Hari (not short for Harriet) Bernstein is a classical musician by training, dating strategist by choice. She helps smart single people say no to situation-ICK and start enjoying their dating lives — with and without a plus-one. She’s also obsessed with solo travel, bread pudding, and all things poodles.

She’d love to see you in her Facebook Group for singles, The Swipe & Gripe Society.

You can also grab up her free First-Date cheatsheet, Mind Over Meet-Cute.