What does the app want? A psychoanalytic interpretation of dating apps’ libidinal economy

Abstract

In this article, we take dating apps as a case study to tackle the question of desire and enjoyment in contemporary society. Moving away from an instrumental conception of digital media, we focus on their (mis)functions and the related (dis)satisfactions. We argue that dating apps’ key function and significance is not that of offering a means through which to find a potential partner, but rather of engaging the subject’s desire without the need for an actual relationship with another person. Applying Lacanian theory to the analysis of empirical data, we dwell on the microphysics of enjoyment of dating apps to analyse the ways in which they activate, exploit and turn the subject’s desire. We maintain that dating apps entail a libidinal economy that operates independently of the app’s obvious function of connecting individuals: they act seductively, engaging the subject’s desire in a pulsating dynamic of loss and gain, promise and frustration, thus becoming an affective object in their own right and offering a way for the subject to cope with the demand to enjoy typical of late capitalism. In a cultural atmosphere in which having a vibrant dating life becomes an imperative, thus foreclosing the space for desire to emerge, dating apps can be a way to respond to such injunctions without confronting the anxiety of an embodied encounter.