“MATCHES” – PERFORMING LOVE ON ONLINE DATING APPLICATIONS

Abstract

This research investigates the digital world and focuses on the platform of online dating. With the internet, there is an increase in interactions among people on different digital spaces and the boundaries of these spaces are marked by the different cultures and practices which are formed by the encounters of people (Darling, & Wilson,2016). Through applying encounters to performativity, we can analyse the shifts in performativity of identity. Performativity as proposed by Butler ontologically assumes an abstracted subject in a given discourse which provides no space for conscious reflexibility, negotiation and agency in the process of identity-making (Nelson, 1999). I argue that digital identities are abstracted from physical bodies and as such, the users are free to craft their digital identities in any way they want however, digital identities remain tethered to the physical bodily desires. This actually complicates how we study and understand performativity. Through exploring the encounters between digital identities, we are able to tease out the constitution of digital space. I argue that this provides an opportunity to examine if the cultures of different online dating applications affect the performances of digital identity and in particular, how the temporal aspect that differs between physical and digital spaces is reflected in the process of self-disclosure and self-representation. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with the participants of online dating applications, this thesis argues that digital identities are not rooted in the physical identities of the subjects and they are very fluid which they can change in any number of ways influenced by things such as encounters. Furthermore, the performativity of identity shifts in time due to greater extent of self-disclosure. This hence indicates a contribution to the existing literature of performativity and encounters.