Industrialization Of Love

Online dating is not a new phenomenon. Every aspect of human life is going online. It was, rather a natural evolution of “connected humans” to take their love life online. Now it is spreading like wildfire. There is absolutely no control. What we are witnessing is industrialization of love. The driving principle behind industrialization was mass production. Thus making things cheap and readily available in huge quantities driving up the consumption. Industrialization was making huge inroads into every aspect of human life. Almost everything that humans desired and consumed was coming out of huge assembly lines. New products were being launched in the market rapidly. Industrialization had answers to all our problems.

With the advent of the internet, human being witnessed the second phase of industrialization. Internet worked as a catalyst. It broke all geographical limitations that industries were struggling with.
However, it also opened new avenues, which were untouched by industrialization. Finally, humans had the tools to address the emotional needs of mankind at a mass level.

We decided to industrialize the most important need of any human being, “LOVE”.  By this time, society was struggling with love. Love was becoming scarce and hard to find. People did not have time to invest in love. We did not have the patience for the courtships to take its due course. Love had lost the speed at which society was changing. It was time to strap on boosters to love. Knowledge of industrialization along with the reach of the internet was the only hopes.

In spite of the fact that industrialization of potato chips created an entire generation of good for nothing couch potatoes. We did the same to love what we had done to potato chips. Mass-produced love and made it readily available.

Now, love was everywhere, it was in our bathrooms, bedroom, kitchen, while driving, while eating. All we had to do was take the phone out and love was served, fresh, in bright colors, in high definition with theater like audio quality. Zillions of dating apps and websites mushroomed up. Subscription to these online dating platforms skyrocketed. Obscure algorithms fueling these apps promised the best possible match. If you were a woman, the idea of handpicked good looking, guys from all over the world being home delivered was being shoved down your head. Now you needed a brain instead of a heart to fall in love. And of course fingers and a phone. It was fascinating, no more dressing up, no more dinner’s at restaurants, no more anxiety of the unknown. Sitting in your dirty, smelly, stain ridden clothes in the comfort of your bedroom, you could approve or reject someone. That amount of power was unheard of.

 How your picture appeared in your profile was everything. Your charm, your smile, silkiness of your hair, your mannerism, your sincerity, the mysticism of your eyes nothing mattered. All you had to do was look good in your pictures and write fancy words to describe yourself. I think, the online dating revolution gave a boom to the dying art of photography. It was no more a tool of NGC reporters or glamour photographers. Everyone wanted a good camera and great profile photos.

Choices were enormous. Suggestions for possible matches were customized for a love seeker. You had options of white guys, not so white guys, brown guys (I had to say this. I am from India), mixed guys. All body types were available for grab. From fit, iron pumping, protein shakes crazy guys, to guys with a little extra weight. You could literally choose between malnourished to an obese person and everything in between.

It even gave us, the brown lot a glimmer of hope. We could now try to date a white girl. We did not have to worry about smelling like curries or our hairy chest, or giving blank looks at jokes our Indian brains had failed to comprehend or nodding our heads for everything. We did not have to spend hours in obscure corners of a bar fantasizing and staring at beautiful white girls at a bar. We just had to swipe right or left. Yes, that true, “left”. Now a third world, poor IT guys on H1B could actually reject good-looking American women. That was a lot of power my friend.

But in this quest of making love available to everyone at their convenience, the ultimate sufferer was love. Love was an object now.Devoid of any layer of softness, purity, authenticity, feelings, tease, emotions. Online dating had brought the beautiful art of dating to extinction. It feels like nothing more than eating another packet of potato chips.

Hope you liked the blog. Happy reading.