How to spot the Tinder Catfish

Ohhhh Tinder. We’ve all had experiences with this dreaded app. If you’re a single and bored college student like myself, Tinder is bound to be on your phone. It’s one of those apps I never really open unless my train is late, I have a spout of insomnia, or I just wanna look at the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in my area. To be honest, I do a lot of swiping but not a lot of messaging. I suppose this makes me one of the awful people that should be included in this list, but let’s ignore that for now.

There are certain profiles I just have to click on. If you’re reading this article and have used Tinder before, you know exactly what types of profiles I’m talking about. The profile named “Pizza” that appropriately only has photos of pizza. This is an infamous Tinder profile that most of my friends have come across as well. Whoever runs this account tends to send some pretty cheesy pickup lines, if you know what I’m saying. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to snag a picture of the Pizza profile for this article, but I’ve got some other gems that I was able to catch. All of the photos used in this article I screen-shotted myself but the removed names and ages to try and keep the profiles anonymous.

Anyway, let’s get into the obvious signs of a fake/troll/bot/catfish Tinder account. From my experience, a Tinder Catfish is someone who uses photos of an extremely attractive person, something funny like pizza, or any other photo that isn’t of their face. These profiles tend to only have one photo, no bio, and no linked Facebook or Instagram accounts. Right off the bat, if someone only has one photo and no bio this should be a huge signal the profile is fake. Other Tinder users might have a different criteria of what they presume a fake profile is, but this is just my own take on the subject. I’ve heard of people who have experienced bots-like robots-on Tinder that try and solicit money, but I have never had this encounter. It shouldn’t have to be said, but if someone’s first message to you is asking for a Venmo transaction you should probably unmatch! With all of this said, I’m a seasoned Tinder swiper and have seen my fair share of funny and fake profiles. Taking in my own Tinder experiences I’ve come up with a schema to detect catfish profiles. This system has been approved and accredited by my friends and roommate, so it’s gotta be accurate.

One Profile Picture Peter

If they only have one photo, there is a good chance the profile is fake and I’m swiping left. How am I supposed to tell if you’re attractive/real if all you’ve got is one blurry picture your grandmother took at the Christmas party from 5 years ago?

No Bio Becky

This is a bit trickier to pinpoint, but a lot of profiles that don’t have any typed out information in them strike me as fake. Sure, you’ve got three pictures of you from your spring break vacation to Miami, but if you don’t have anything written in your profile odds are I’m assuming you’re not real.

This one is extremely obnoxious because it has no photo and no bio! How the heck am I supposed to judge you by a blank screen?!

Pizza Picture Pretender

So these profiles aren’t necessarily fake persay, but they’re troll accounts in my opinion. The Pizza profile person may be real, but will only send you pizza-related messages that tend to be a little cheesy (see what I did there).

Classic Sandy Cheeks profile. I’d swipe right!

Five Pictures of My Car but none of My Face

Again, these profiles could be real but who in their right mind is going to look through 5 pictures of your car and swipe right? I never understood these types of profiles that had a bunch of pictures, but none of the person behind the profile. Sure, you’ve got a cool car. But how am I supposed to engage in conversation with someone who only has pictures of the beach, City Hall, or their chest? (all of which I have seen in the course of writing this article).

The classic vehicle picture. Everybody’s got one.

Ahhh yes. A beautiful picture of water!

The “I Just Want Cardi-B to Perform at My School”

This seems to be a trend on Tinder at the moment, and I’m not sure what it’s all about. Apparently the rapper/badass Cardi B is partnering with Tinder to provide a free concert to the University that has the most right swipes- appropriately named the “Swipe Off” competition. Although it looks like the competition ends sometime in mid-April 2018, I guess the University of Pennsylvania was in the running at some point. An influx of profiles with “I’m only swiping for Cardi B” in the bio began to flood my app. I personally didn’t really care for this, seeing as anyone I matched with didn’t respond due to their reasoning for being on the app.

The lizard picture is pretty pleasing if I do say so myself.

The “I’m using pictures of my dog in hopes that you think he’s cute and give me a pity swipe” Profile

Okay, so these profiles aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Who doesn’t want to look at cute pictures of animals on Tinder? A lot of the pets I come across are people making profiles for their pet, which can be adorable at times. Other times, people will put directly in their bio something along the lines of “I put a picture of my dog first. You can play with him if you swipe right”. These are the types of profiles I’m not a fan of. I wanna see your dog but now you sound desperate (sorry!)