Tinder, a dating app that has become popular with celebrities, will now be allowing them to have verified accounts, just like Twitter and Facebook. This will let average users know that it is the real celebrity behind an account, not just another person hiding behind a celebrity name.
Tinder CEO Sean Rad spoke with The Hollywood Reporter at SXSW and said that some of his high-profile users rarely get matches. By allowing people like Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Kennedy to get their accounts verified, no one will be worried about the account being a fake.
“This will allow celebrities to enter Tinder in a different way,” Rad told THR.
Rad told TIME that the issue is that many celebrities have said they can’t convince the average user that they are the real celebrity.
“One impediment is that sometimes their Facebook accounts, which we pull information from, includes different names than their actual likeness,” Rad said. “So [celebrities] were asking for the ability to modify their Tinder name and maybe have a verified badge.”
Rad and co-founder Justin Mateen said that they understood celebrities’ frustrations with the phone-based app. No one would believe them when they said they were Tinder’s co-founders on their own profiles.
Rad wouldn’t say what stars are using the app. However, he told THR that its location feature helped other Tinder users get together at the Oscars’ Dolby Theatre.
image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
