Or maybe it's actually good this time?

This dude has been a member of Ars Technica's forums for 24 years and somehow thinks that the AI bubble is bursting because... it's continuously getting better and new products are being launched? Maybe he's just talking about the financial side of things but even then I don't really see it.

Imagine the reportmaxxing potential on a 24-year-old account.

These guys make Redditors look smart.

I'm sorry that you missed the crypto boom, please get over it.

This is the most downmarseyd comment in the thread. Attacking China is BANNED.

This comment was also towards the bottom, but has 67 upmarseys so must be a fairly popular opinion.

People think the female sumo in Assassin's Creed Shadows is a joke, but it’s real. They added a female sumo who kicks and pulverizes Japanese chuds. Worse, in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, 'rikishi' meant 'man of strength.' With such a rich history, they chose this to mock Japan pic.twitter.com/N9k7jSA1X4

— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) January 28, 2025

These mayos have no sense of humor

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a lovely eurojank game where you play as a special-ed student who learns to swing a sword in Bohemia. It garnered attention upon its release for the lead dev's refusal to add Blak people to the game, for "historical accuracy", and he continued to play the chud after the game sold well. (Montage of various chuddy tweets from back in the day)

However, the upcoming sequel has been struck with disaster - a leak showing the darkest Muslim man in existence lecture the player about how good Islam is hit the web and created a frenzy. Additionally, there was a rumour about an unskippable gay love scene between the canonically straight main character and some random dude.

Naturally, this caused some panic among chuds. Was their hecking based Czech studio infiltrated? Where did it all go wrong?

They took to Twitter to pester the studio head, Daniel Vavra, to ask for clarification. Instead of an answer, they received non-responses in various forms

Turns out that we are once again in the middle of a rather bizarre "culture war", this time from the opposite side than usual :) So here's a statement, but I'd hate to spoil the plot of the game for the sake of it. pic.twitter.com/MDgbY7WD7A

— Daniel Vávra ⚔ (@DanielVavra) January 17, 2025

Finally, the silence was broken

5/10 KCD is an RPG, you are responsible for your decisions. If you want Henry to try a same-s*x adventure, feel free. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. All affairs are (and were in KCD1) purely optional. The characters are perfectly aware, that it was a forbidden sin.

— Daniel Vávra ⚔ (@DanielVavra) January 19, 2025

Yes, there is a proud Kang, and yes you will frick the bussy, and you'll like it darnit!

Responses have been measured and reasonable

Claims abound of plummeting preorder numbers and de-wishlisting

Mark Kern has also become an enemy of the state, claiming the game definitely isn't woke.

I can guarantee that none of these r-slurs were going to play it anyway, particularly because I've not seen anyone mention this particular line from Kern's review:

Combat is similar but easier than the first game

The real goyslop is in making the mechanics dumber so that hecking valid enbys don't cry when forced to learn a moderately interesting combat system.

Kill all kiwiggers

DEAD RUSSIANS

SPLODY PAGERS

CAPTURED CITADELS

INVADING TURKS

WHAT THE FRICK IS GOING ON

Around 2014, shortly before I went to prison, the civil war in Syria was very fun to follow - the Ukraine or Israel of its day but less normie. It was in the sweet spot between these wars - very well reported, slow, and with a couple of cohesive factions - and jiggaboo hijinks in Africa where there are dozens of factions, zero cohesiveness, minimal information, and rapid butt movements and upsets because Russians came or a white man got mad.

Then I got out and shit was boring again. ISIS was gone, the rebels were cucked, and Assad had mostly won. How'd that happen?

2011-2012: Humble beginnings

Bashar Assad, the Alawite leader of Syria, had brutally oppressed his people for many years. In Arab fashion, it took American glowies on X (at the time known as "twitter") to galvanize them into rebelling, which they did, mostly ineffectually, over 2011-2012.

Though their achievements were minimal, with every massacre and atrocity, Assad's grip over the population and business establishment weakened. This emboldened individuals and factions, and everyone (perceiving weakness) shifted from keeping their head down to aiming for a piece of the Syrian pie.

2013: Shit gets real

Red is Assad, supported by the Alawites (inhabiting the coast, mostly), secularish and nationalist Syrians, certain classes of society like Sunni businessmen who supported him pragmatically, various Sunnis in his patronage network, and regular people either coerced or cajoled into it.

He was backed by Iran in exchange for further influence, an open lane to supply its Shiite proxies, like Hezbollah (via Iraq), and as a geopolitical ally and counterweight to the western gulf states. Also, to a lesser extent, by Russia (who operate a port in Syria), China and other contrarians.

Green is almost everyone else: dozens of armed groups with grandiose names and wide-ranging political views, from moderate Islamists to hardcore Islamists. You think I'm kidding. No joke, every single Sunni Arab anti-Assad group at the time had some flavor of Islamic flavoring. The "moderate" guys wore short beards, listened to music and took American funds while beheading Alawites whereas the hardcore guys beheaded music listeners and moderates too

The rebels held the suburbs - but not centers - of Damascus (capital) and Aleppo (second biggest city), the rural north (Sunni and neglected under Assad) and various positions in between. They were supported by wealthy gulf donors, Turkey, who gave them a free hand to cross the border and engage in commerce, and western powers like America and Europe. Like any non-state group they engaged in their fair share of smuggling, petty crime, taxation and tolls.

Yellow are the Kurds, who varied politically and religiously but always put their Kurdishness first. Initially, they were anti-Assad due to years of oppression, etc. but seeing how the Islamists treated them turned them more pragmatic. Poor guys, nobody except Israel likes them :(

There were also some Druze in the south, under the green faction for convenience.

2014: Rise-is of ISIS

Some ex-al Qaeda members in Iraq, battle-hardened and bored, saw an opportunity in the power vacuum to free Sunnis from Assad, which in practice became freeing them from their more lenient Sunni overlords (rebel militias proving an easier target than a theoretically professional army). Within a few months, they bulldozed most of the Syrian rebel factions in the east, turning their sights onto and humiliating Iraq as well.

At their height that winter ISIS was wrecking Arab armies everywhere and about to demolish Kobane / Ayn al Arab (one of the three Kurdish cantons). They did so much nasty shit there's no point in mentioning or cataloging it. IIKYK, if not, have a listicle I haven't read from google. Many locals felt some kinda way about their behavior but couldn't do much without getting beheaded. However, besides a huge number of foreign volunteers from shitholes like Chechnya and Tunisia, they also had local support from true believers, Shia-haters and those who appreciated unified governance over the mess of squabbling factions which had preceded it.

The Western reaction was wholly negative, so much so that even stodgy bureaucrats, Assad opponents, and kumbaya-singing libcucks from cowardly first world nations were galvanized into action. In September, 26 countries met in Paris and agreed to started bombing ISIS heavily; the US also bullied Turkey into letting the Kurds take their shit back.

2015: Meh

Not much changed this year. Besides Kurdish successes, the rebels took Idlib and consolidated in the south with the Druze. Most of the rebel-Assad line of battle was very low intensity, like Ukraine today. Neither side had the manpower, weaponry or supplies to engage in a more serious manner. In Iraq, the jihadis suffered multiple serious defeats by Shiite paramilitaries and the army.

I'm mostly not covering other name and branding changes in this article but (since it might come up later) in exchange for American support the Kurds accepted some token Arab groups and rebranded as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in October.

2016: Two more weeks

There was a ceasefire most of the first half of the year, everyone focussing on beating ISIS. You'll notice a large green swath in the south: a Jordanian-trained, Western-aligned, U.S.-led opposition group. When the greenbacks started coming in, they spun off from the Allahu Akbar brigade, traded bobbing their heads 5 times a day for a pair of raybans and never looked back. No bullshit, check the article, their predecessor organization was literally called that. 'Moderates'

They remain there to this day.

The latter part of the year offensives ramped up against the jihadis.

2017: Bye-SIS

Mainly Assad and the Kurds benefitted from pushing ISIS' shit in, with the exception of that small green slice up north: Erdogan's belated decision to establish a direct Turkish proxy instead of broadly supporting the opposition. That said, progress was slow as mutual enemies proceeded cautiously. That changed in July, when America and Russia agreed to a ceasefire to focus on the jihadis. Crucially, America agreed to stop funding and supplying most rebel groups. By then, ISIS had lost the north side of the Euphrates and many key positions, but still retained their capital, Raqqa, and significant territory within Syria and Iraq.

By the end of the year that was gone too. The terrorists were defeated, and all they'd accompished in the long run was a transfer of Sunni Arab land to Alawites and Kurds.

2018: Tits-urkey and Butt-ad

Turkey was pissed off at the success the Kurds were having and the fact PKK (Kurdish rebels from Turkey) fighters were a large part of the Kurdish army. Also, 3 to 4 million Syrian refugees had fled to Turkey, where they were causing societal issues !chuds and !nooticers might recognize. Consequently, they invaded Ifrin (the leftmost canton), kicked out the Kurds and resettled many refugees there.

Meanwhile Assad took the opportunity to wipe out any rebel pockets left south of Idlib/Aleppo. By and large, he seemed the biggest winner of a multi-year debacle which had left hundreds of thousands dead, an economy destroyed, and many millions fled in all directions, but Assad still in office and in control of the majority of the country and its population, and in negotiations with the Kurds, who'd earned some crucial respect and were angling for autonomy (obviously, independence was a non-starter, given the small size of Syrian Kurdistan, hostile neighbords, lack of port and the presence of Arab factions within the SDF).

2019: Sunni shenanigans

You'll notice a splotch of c*m on the green; over the course of the year, HTS (a Salafi Islamist group that had, unlike ISIS, renounced global jihad) mostly subdued other rebels in the Idlib area. I haven't mentioned inter-rebel fighting in the interests of brevity and sanity but you should know Wikipedia acerbically calls this the "fifth inter-rebel conflict." Keep that in mind when @sandkwinn and other 80-iq antisemites call for pan-Arabism, peace with Hamas, and the like. Arabs couldn't peacefully unify in a single PROVINCE while having 1. the exact same ideology, religion and langage and 2. least two, maybe four serious external enemies in common including a bloodthirsty tyrant and the world's worst terrorist organization.

Also, Turkey expanded their foothold in the east to a 30-km "buffer zone." The Kurds reacted by letting Assad's troops in to reestablish their presence alongside SDF forces throughout much of northern Syria. Notably, throughout the whole war, Turkey refused to consider a full invasion of Syria or direct, serious confrontation with Assad (for boring reasons), so this was basically ensuring an end to Turkish incursions in exchange for letting Assad back in the hen house.

In October, Trump's Navy SEALs capped Baghdadi in Idlib. The world rejoiced.

2020:

Assad, with serious Russian support, pushed up on Idlib, and the Kurds let him operate in even more of their territory. Dozens of Turks got merked by the Russians (probably on accident), causing a diplomatic rift and retaliatory bombing of Syrian gov't positions.

2021-2024: Nothing ever happens

The frontlines stabilized and fossilized, most direct conflict ending.

Sanctions of Assad's economy caused him to increasingly rely on the production and distribution of Captagon (meth / adderall type stim) to the gulf for foreign currency. Deciding their shit wasn't fricked enough, G-d sent them some earthquakes.

The Kurds mostly acknowledged Assad's suzerainty in case of a war with Turkey while retaining their militias and local administration. Occasional skirmishes against the Syrian Army and between Kurds and Arabs within the SDF continued.

HTS "unified" Idlib - in the bare minimum sense that the 11 other factions there acknowledged their superior position while remaining independent - and started professionalizing their army, integrating drones and shit.

The American proxies sit in the desert guarding a CIA listening post and the only direct road from Baghdad to Damascus.

Everyone got bored and stopped checking r/syriancivilwar.

UNTIL THIS WEEK

Wednesday, November 27th

Neighbors in the loop saw on X that HTS had launched a small offensive in the villages west of Aleppo, catching a mostly-demobilized Syrian army by surprise and capturing a few bases, some dozens of soldiers, vehicles and equipment commensurate with a raid of that size.

Ah, the famous West Aleppo HTS T-90 is returning to the area (mildly different owners to last time) pic.twitter.com/sso4Bhw5Bh

— Cᴀʟɪʙʀᴇ Oʙsᴄᴜʀᴀ (@CalibreObscura) November 27, 2024

This footage of regime soldiers running away from their positions was taken at 36.269153, 36.958279, just to the east of the town of Qubtan al-Jabal.

This confirms initial reports Syrian rebels have captured this town in theb western #Aleppo countryside.#Syria https://t.co/yf083BTbKW pic.twitter.com/HTjqGQmCR5

— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) November 27, 2024

قوات الأسد يسقطون أسرى بالعشرات وأحدهم يوجه رسالة إلى الباقين في جيش الأسد#ردع_العدوان #إدارة_العمليات_العسكرية pic.twitter.com/SAV6WfYaTB

— قتيبة ياسين (@k7ybnd99) November 27, 2024

Most tweets are already deleted but there were some fun vids of them beating captives, a dead Russian or two, spoils of war etc. Nobody thought anything of it. We're all used to these shitty little propaganda raids from two-bit outfits in BIPOC parts of the world like Myanmar and Ukraine. You'd have to be mainling copium to expect anything more given the shit performance of the rebels the past decade and a half... right?

Thursday, November 28th

I was busy mowing the lawn, trimming trees and hedges, weeding, cleaning out the AC drain and, like all Americans, having Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, not Syria, was on my mind.

Turkey was on the Syrian National Army's mind too, which is to say they were grateful Turkey did not take advantage of the fact HTS was overrunning their entire shit west of Aleppo, maybe the only bright side of the debacle so far. It seems the consolidation of the past few years paid off - HTS used better equipment, were better trained, and had drones and operators never before seen in sandshit outside Israel. The advance showed no signs of stopping.

Suheil al-Hasan was spotted near the front - the pro-Russian commander of the "elite" Tiger Forces and somewhat of a civil war celebrity.

HTS managed to swiftly advance into Khan al Asal - after fierce clashes, HTS manages to seize and secure the city/suburb

They are now at the gates of Aleppo and are carrying out artillery strikes on Aleppo https://t.co/BOblD6Uh5D pic.twitter.com/sFJAAFkYfA

— ScharoMaroof (@ScharoMaroof) November 28, 2024

They reached within 7km of Aleppo's center, killing and plundering on the way. Many Syrian army guys got caught with their pants down - an Arab specialty, to whom discipline outside of active combat is a foreign concept.

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h25kga/dead_kia_as_regime_truck_ambushed_somewhere_in/

It looks like they knocked off an Iranian general...

NEW: Syrian rebels managed to kill IRGC’s Brigadier General Kiyomarth Porhashmi in Aleppo during the latest offensive, Iran’s SNN agency reports

He is described as the the commander of the Iranian advisors in Syria pic.twitter.com/7febUeRdm2

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) November 28, 2024

Meanwhile the Turks and Kurds got spooked...

🇷🇺🇸🇾⚡- Russian airstrikes are getting closer and closer to Turkish military presence. Footage shows Russian attacks against Arihah, just 2km from the Turkish base at Kafr Lata. pic.twitter.com/qTRjO1nYQL

— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) November 28, 2024

🔴 Suriye Milli Ordusu, Halep Operasyonu’na katılmak üzere kuvvetlerini seferber ediyor. pic.twitter.com/NKT5hOHzIV

— Conflict (@ConflictTR) November 28, 2024

HTS and SNA media channels have started to post this - so we can do now too.

SDF is moving as well - SDF reinforcements are being deployed into Manbij. https://t.co/cYTHwBoBxQ pic.twitter.com/3nABfj9Iar

— ScharoMaroof (@ScharoMaroof) November 28, 2024

Friday, November 29th

HTS continued their excursion in Aleppo:

#BREAKING #Syria JUST IN: Video footage shows Syrian rebel forces in the Al-Furqan district of Aleppo. pic.twitter.com/b22deYQ6xM

— The National Independent (@NationalIndNews) November 29, 2024

Freeing their neighbors (and some hos) from the torture prisons:

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2vzk2/tariq_bin_ziyad_prison_near_alrahman_mosque/

Capturing mad shit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2aidp/videos_of_some_of_the_20_tanks_captured_by_rebels/

Opposition forces inside #Aleppo city have captured a whole stock of MANPADS.

Sources tell me more tanks, BMPs, anti-tank guided missiles & more have been seized in multiple weapons stores left behind by fleeing #Assad regime forces. pic.twitter.com/eCYD2wUJp8

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) November 29, 2024

And the police HQ:

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2v880/hts_fighters_captured_the_aleppo_police/

Laughable showing by Assad honestly.

https://old.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/1h2yxyi/rebels_caught_a_soldier_in_aleppo_who_had_been/

Most importantly, THEY TOOK THE CITADEL! This dumb butt castle or something was held by the regime the entire fricking war. It's almost unbreachable (by middle eastern standards) if properly defended. Big propaganda coup for the rebs.

History.#Syria opposition fighters pose in front of #Aleppo's citadel tonight, as the city falls from #Assad's control. pic.twitter.com/rhsHHhHAbY

— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) November 29, 2024

The future...?

Are Islamists (HTS), Turkey (SNA) and the Kurds (SDF) - the most unlikely allies - really going to campaign together against Assad? After 13 years during which zero cooperation took place between anyone, including at times when a slight intervention by, say, Turkey or Israel would have toppled the dictator? Or is this all hype and nothing ever happens? Will Assad counterattack with Russian or Iranian help and kick these neighbors back to Idlib?

No one knows

P.S. @DWHITE___________DYNAMITE please teach your mans how to spell drumstick

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1igqnoh/new_bill_to_effectively_kill_anime_other_piracy/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/1igqo6h/new_bill_to_effectively_kill_anime_other_piracy/

https://old.reddit.com/r/animenews/comments/1igd8x6/new_bill_to_effectively_kill_piracy_in_the_us/

https://old.reddit.com/r/animepiracy/comments/1ignpv7/anime_other_piracy_in_the_us_gets_backing_by/

New Bill to Effectively Kill Anime & Other Piracy in the U.S. Gets Backing by Netflix, Disney & Sonyhttps://t.co/DPQvaZTyt3

— Pirat_Nation 🔴 (@Pirat_Nation) February 3, 2025

I can't believe I'm just now finding out that the ASCII code for the letter "X" is 88. Before I would've thought it was a coincidence but now....

— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) 2025-02-04T19:57:08.732Z

Concerning.

Do you hear that sound? The creaking and groaning? That was the sound of all of the people who played this game 30 years ago rising from their coffin to defend its honor.

I don't think it is worth it gramps as this game has aged so poorly it should be laid to rest with you. And I'm not just talking about the graphics or overall polish, there is barely even a game there.

There are almost no decisions to make in terms of your build. Almost optimal stat choices can be described in anywhere from a sentence to a word depending on which one of the 3 classes you chose (hint the magic user puts points into magic). Even the fights barely have you making any decisions. Early levels with the warrior have you sitting in a doorway wacking who ever comes in range while later levels have you chugging potions because dodging is 100% impossible. Playing a mage is more interesting as you have a sizable selection of spells but half of them are just Blast Baddie Fire or Blast Baddie Ice and you just find which one is better and stick with that.

The one place where user choice does come into play is the itemization. You get many different magic items throughout the game which can have pretty interesting upsides. Its not perfect and it definitely doesn't make up for the rest of the game though.

That isn't to say the game is all bad. The visuals aren't perfect but some of the enemies have pretty cool death animations. But even the best of this game isn't especially good, there are hundreds of games that have better visuals, fallout 1 is a good example of another sprite based isometric game that looks much better.

Also the Sorcerer is BIPOC, DEI much?

https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1isip8c/the_guardrails_were_never_there_were_they/

https://old.reddit.com/r/xxfitness/comments/1iciz0r/comment/m9r2mgb/?context=8

epilogue: lol a few top level comments seething that I don't even post there and am not a woman got deleted and banned and someone in the jannie response got banned too

All the karma I lost on the nms sub earlier trying to explain that Elon is a neurodivergent African American immigrant has been recouped too and I am safe from a shadowbanning

A year into their relationship, Jess and Nate got engaged next to the sea. "It was a golden, sandy beach – empty and secluded," says Jess, 26. "It was just us two there, so it was really intimate."

Except that the couple were actually hundreds of miles apart – and they were role-playing their engagement in the video game World of Warcraft.

Nate, 27, was living just outside London – and Jess was in Wales. After meeting briefly at an esports event in Germany in March 2023, the pair developed a long-distance relationship, playing the game together "from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to bed", says Nate.

The couple still play the game daily, even though they've been living together in Manchester since March 2024. And they know other couples who have found their partners through video games: "It's a different way of meeting someone," says Jess. "You both have such a strong mutual love for something already, it's easier to fall in love."

Nate agrees. "I was able to build a lot more of a connection with people I meet in gaming than I ever was able to in a dating app."

A selfie of Nate and Jess on the left, and on the right, a screenshot from World of Warcraft showing Nate proposing with the words, "Will you marry me?"

Nate and Jess (pictured, alongside their virtual engagement), found love online - but not on a dating app

Nate and Jess are not alone. According to some experts, people of their generation are moving away from dating apps and finding love on platforms that were not specifically designed for romance.

And hanging out somewhere online that's instead focused on a shared interest or hobby could allow people to find a partner in a lower-stakes, less pressurised setting than marketing themselves to a gallery of strangers. For some digital-native Gen Zs, it seems, simply doing the things they enjoy can be an alternative to the tyranny of the swipe.

Internet dating at 30 - a turning point?

Since it first appeared with the launch of match.com 30 years ago, online dating has fundamentally altered our relationships. Around 10% of heterosexual people and 24% of LGBT people have met their long-term partner online, according to Pew Research Center.

But evidence suggests that young people are switching off dating apps, with the UK's top 10 seeing a fall of nearly 16%, according to a report published by Ofcom in November 2024. Tinder lost 594,000 users, while Hinge dropped by 131,000, Bumble by 368,000 and Grindr by 11,000, the report said (a Grindr spokesperson said they were "not familiar with this study's source data" and that their UK users "continue to rise year over year").

According to a 2023 Axios study of US college students and other Gen Zers, 79% said they were forgoing regular dating app usage. And in its 2024 Online Nation report, Ofcom said: "Some analysts speculate that for younger people, particularly Gen Z, the novelty of dating apps is wearing off." In a January 2024 letter to shareholders, Match Group Inc - which owns Tinder and Hinge - acknowledged younger people were seeking "a lower pressure, more authentic way to find connections".

"The idea of using a shared interest to meet someone isn't new, but it's been reinvented in this particular moment in time – it signals a desire of Gen Z," says Carolina Bandinelli, an associate professor at Warwick University whose research focuses on the digital technologies of romance.

Getty Images Joggers running in a parkGetty Images

Many younger people are exploring alternatives to dating apps, from gaming to running clubs and other social activities

According to Danait Tesfay, 26, a marketing assistant from London, younger people are looking for alternatives to dating apps, "whether that be gaming or running clubs or extra-curricular clubs, where people are able to meet other like-minded people and eventually foster a romantic connection".

At the same time that membership of some dating apps appears to be in decline, platforms based around common interests are attracting more users. For instance, the fitness app Strava now has 135m users – and its monthly active users grew by 20% last year, according to the company. Other so-called "affinity-based" sites have seen similar growth: Letterboxd, where film fans can share reviews, says its community grew by 50% last year.

Rise of the hobby apps

And just as in the pre-internet age, when couples might have met at a sports club or the cinema, now singletons are able to find each other in their online equivalents.

"People have always bonded over shared interests, but it's been given a digital spin with these online communities," says Luke Brunning, co-director of the Centre for Love, S*x, and Relationships (CLSR) at the University of Leeds.

"It's increasingly difficult to distinguish between behaviour that's on a dating app and dating behaviour on another platform."

Hobby apps are taking on some features of social media, too: in 2023, Strava introduced a messaging feature letting users chat directly. One twenty-something from London explains that her friends use it as a way to flirt with people they fancy, initially by liking a running route they've posted on the platform. Strava says its data shows that one in five of its active Gen Z members has been on a date with someone they met through fitness clubs.

"[Online] fitness communities are becoming big places to find partners," says Nichi Hodgson, the author of The Curious History of Dating. She says a friend of hers met his partner that way, and they're now living together.

The same appears to apply to Letterboxd, too. With users including Chappell Roan and Charli XCX, it's a popular platform for younger people - two-thirds of members in a survey of 5,000 were under 34.

The company says it's aware of several couples meeting through the app, including one who bonded over a shared love of David Fincher's opinion-dividing 2020 drama Mank. "It could be that seeing other people's film tastes reveals an interesting aspect of themselves," says Letterboxd co-founder Matthew Buchanan.

Why the shift?

So what might be driving this? While dating apps initially appeared to offer "the illusion of choice", and a transparent, efficient way to meet partners, the reality for many has often proven to be different. The Pew Research Center found that 46% of dating-app users said their experiences were overall very or somewhat negative.

The recent decline in user numbers might also be a response to the way some apps are structured – in particular, the swipe feature for selecting potential partners, launched by Tinder in 2013 and widely copied.

Its creator, Jonathan Badeen, was partly inspired by studying the 1940s experiments of psychologist BF Skinner, who conditioned hungry pigeons to believe that food delivered randomly into a tray was prompted by their movements.

Getty Images A psychological experiment with pigeons conducted by BF SkinnerGetty Images

Tinder's swipe mechanism was partly inspired by Harvard Professor BF Skinner's psychological experiments with pigeons in order to understand the brain's reward system

Eventually, the swipe mechanism faced a backlash. "Ten years ago, people were enthusiastic and would talk quite openly about what apps they were on," says Ms Hodgson. "Now the Tinder model is dead with many young people – they don't want to swipe any more."

According to Mr Brunning, the gameifying interface of many dating apps is a turn-off. "Intimacy is made simple for you, it's made fun in the short term, but the more you play, the more you feel kind of icky."

The pandemic may have had an impact, too, says Prof Brian Heaphy at the University of Manchester, who has studied dating-app use in and after the lockdowns: "During Covid, dating apps themselves became more like social media – because people couldn't meet up, they were looking for different things."

Although that didn't last after the pandemic, it "gave people a sense that it could be different from just swiping and getting no responses – all the negatives of dating-app culture," says Prof Heaphy.

And in that context, the fact that video games or online communities like Strava or Letterboxd aren't designed for dating can be appealing. By attracting users for a broader range of reasons, there's less pressure on each interaction.

"Those apps aren't offering a commercialised form of romance, so they can seem more authentic," says Prof Heaphy.

The World of Warcraft characters of PurplePixel and Wochi

The humans behind Wochi and PurplePixel (pictured) met while playing World of Warcraft, though they say finding a partner wasn't their original intention

It's a type of connection free from the burden of expectation. A different couple who met on World of Warcraft – and go by the names Wochi and PurplePixel – weren't looking for love. "I definitely didn't go into an online game trying to find a partner," says Wochi.

But although initially in opposing teams, or guilds, their characters started a conversation. "We spent all night talking until the early hours of the morning, and by the end of the night, I'd actually left my guild and joined his guild," says PurplePixel. Within three years, Wochi had quit his job and moved to the UK from Italy to be with her.

According to Ms Hodgson, "While some dating apps can bring out the worst behaviours, these other online spaces can do the opposite, because people are sharing something they enjoy."

Because of these structural elements, she doesn't think the recent decline in numbers is temporary. "It's going to keep happening until dating apps figure out how to put the human aspect back."

New kinds of dating app

The dating apps aren't giving up without a fight, however. Hinge is still "setting up a date every two seconds", according to a spokesperson; Tinder says a relationship starts every three seconds on its platform and that almost 60% of its users are aged 18-30. In fact, the apps appear to be embracing the shift to shared-interest platforms, launching niche alternatives including ones based around fitness, veganism, dog-ownership or even facial hair.

They're also evolving to encourage different kinds of interaction. On Breeze, users who agree to be set up on a date aren't allowed to message each other before they meet; and Jigsaw hides people's faces, only removing pieces to reveal the full photo after a certain amount of interaction.

It means that it's premature to proclaim the death of the dating app, believes Prof Heaphy. "There's now such a diversity of dating apps that the numbers for the biggest ones aren't the key indicator," he says. "It might actually be a similar number to before, in terms of overall membership."

And there's a downside to people going to more general-interest apps looking for love – people might not want to be hit on when they just want to talk about books. Dating apps, at least, are clear about what their purpose is.

What might the future look like?

In an increasingly online world, the solution to improving relationships might not simply be to go offline. Instead, apps that can offer an experience which more closely mirrors the best of IRL interactions, while tapping into the possibilities of digital ones, might also show a way forward.

With the imminent integration of AI into dating apps, we are "right on the cusp of something new", says Mr Brunning. "It's interesting to see if we'll end up with specific apps just for dating, or will we end up with something a bit more fluid?"

He points to platforms in China that are more multi-purpose. "People use them for chat, for community, and conduct business on them – they can also be dating platforms, but they're often not exclusively for that."

In the meantime, the interactions possible in less mediated communities like World of Warcraft could offer more of a chance to connect than conversations initiated by a swipe.

Jess and Nate's in-game engagement on the beach might not have been real, but the couple are hoping to change that soon. "It's a matter of when, really. There are a few things we need to tick off the checklist, and then she'll be getting her ring," says Nate. And there'll still be a gaming element.

"You can role-play getting married," says Jess. "So it could be funny to get all our friends together at some point in the World of Warcraft cathedral, and we could have a marriage ceremony."

oh my fucking god she thinks that Nietzsche's description of master-slave morality was him commenting on real life slavery??? and asks where his source is for that being how slavery worked??? https://t.co/ruDhaUyHYR

— ً (@INXLiNGs) February 15, 2025

The Cat Returns (2002) pic.twitter.com/p2QkZNBqzE

— Retro Anime (@retro_twt) February 12, 2025

Pirate: https://nyaa.si/view/1225344

UPDATE: Middle School IT tech Mason David Luxenberg aka "MasonL87" has deleted his Reddit account after researchers discovered credible death threats and other extremist commentary on his profile.

Follow @JR_Newswire https://t.co/ILTEwszU7y pic.twitter.com/hDFNl4WznF

— Justice Report (@JR_Newswire) February 7, 2025

What our Modern Executive gets done

Love checking in on my girlies more unhinged than /r/redscarepod and /r/rs_x

r*pe 😂😂😂😂😂

also im gay and my peepee is small

This is your one chance losers, dont mess it up!

Heres review of the movie shes talking about btw:

https://old.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/1648nmn/past_lives_an_analysis_of_the_movie_spoilers/

https://old.reddit.com/r/AsianMasculinity/comments/14gykob/has_anybody_seen_the_new_movie_past_lives_by_a24/

https://old.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/1iteeaa/the_boomer_brain_has_no_defense_against_this_slop/

https://old.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/1isyi9o/_/