Viewers puzzled over Newsnight comment about gay men
Viewers took to social media last night to express their displeasure after Newsnight host Evan Davies said dating app Tinder let heterosexuals “act like gay men” by providing an “easy hook up service”.
Davies, himself gay, was last night hosting a segment which looked at Tinder HQ’s bizarre Twitter meltdown earlier on in the week. The company posted a string of tweets aimed at Vanity Fair journalist Nancy Jo Sales, criticising her feature article on dating culture that said the app was “just for hooking up” and that a large percentage of users were actually already married.
Our actual data says that 1.7% of Tinder users are married — not 30% as the preposterous GlobalWebIndex article indicated.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Tinder users are on Tinder to meet people for all kinds of reasons. Sure, some of them — men and women — want to hook up.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
In the Newsnight segment, a Disney-style animation of a guy and girl arranging a Tinder date featured a voiceover explaining to the “unitiated” that Tinder was the biggest app on the market to allow “straight people of any gender to behave like gay men”:
“It’s an easy hook-up service. You upload your profile, and scroll through others, to find someone to meet,” said Davies.
“It’s love at first swipe. Swipe left for the ones you don’t like, swipe right for the folks you’re interested in. And then if the feeling’s mutual, you can message each other and take it from there.”
Little Britain actor Matt Lucas, who created gay character Daffyd in the hit series, labelled the BBC “pathetic” for the choice of wording.
https://twitter.com/RealMattLucas/status/631601889239531520
I hate to be THAT guy, but you do a segment about Tinder, and you choose THIS as the intro. What the HELL #newsnight pic.twitter.com/AYKBNWU3Hv
— Oli Foster (@NotBBCSportsGuy) August 12, 2015
The Huffington Post UK reports the BBC has not yet responded to questions about the wording of the intro.
Words by TROY NANKERVIS.