Tinder Urges Users to Ditch Tiger Selfies

This week, dating app Tinder issued a statement to urge its users to refrain from posting photos posing with tigers and other wild animals. “Posing next to a king of the jungle doesn’t make you one. It’s time for the tiger selfies to go,” the company stated in a blog post. “More often than not, these photos take advantage of beautiful creatures that have been torn from their natural environment. Wild animals deserve to live in the wild.” Tinder incentivized users to remove their tiger selfies by promising to make a $10,000 donation to animal-welfare organization Project Cat in honor of International Tiger Day. The dating company offered a few suggestions of photo themes users can take to replace tiger selfies, including “enjoying a summer sesame falafel bowl at your favorite vegan eatery.” To spread the word, Tinder created a social media campaign to rid profiles of wild animal photos under #NoTigerSelfies. An experiment conducted last year in Australia revealed that men with vegan Tinder profiles—as opposed to those that touted bacon—received more engagement from potential mates.