There are three ways to approach someone on Tinder after you’ve matched: Say some variation of “hey, how are you?”, send over a compliment based on an image, or ask them a question based off of the photos they’ve posted. It’s hard to start up a conversation with a stranger when you’ve got no context. There isn’t much time to get someone’s attention.
In 2011, long before Tinder was invented — remember those days? The good old days of meeting people IRL! — I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, covering the sprawling ArtPrize art fair forHyperallergic. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing there, but the Megabus from Chicago to Grand Rapids was really cheap, I was looking for an adventure, and there was a free hotel room at my disposal. For those who don’t know, ArtPrize is this bizarre art competition located in a very religious county in Michigan. I arrived excited, but soon felt lost amongst the Jesus sculptures and blonde-hair, blue-eyed white women.
Luckily, a friend of mine in Chicago introduced me ahead of time to the artist Anna Campbell, who was teaching at nearby Grand Valley State University. She would be around for ArtPrize. I was working primarily as an art journalist at the time, so I figured I would interview her for an article I was writing about the politics of ArtPrize, which broke down as a bizarre, politically problematic coming together of populism and art world elitism funded with corporate cash from the ultra-conservative DeVos family.
Read the full story at CRAVE Online: http://www.craveonline.com/art/columns/875699-tinder-tales-like-hands
All Crystal Paradise columns here:
