10 things to know about Hinge, the dating app that married Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York

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Last June, on the podcast "The Bulwark," journalist Cameron Kasky, who describes himself as "twice broken-hearted," asked Zohran Mamdani , then a candidate for mayor of New York City, if he planned to encourage the development of "third places" to help young people of Generation Z (those born after 1995) meet "in person" in the city that never sleeps. Mamdani replied, laughing, that he himself had met his wife on Hinge. He then added, "So there's still hope in these dating apps!"

2. Hinge

The creation of Hinge is a Christmas tale with a twist. Originally, Justin McLeod was a business school student who, barely recovered from a breakup, had the idea in 2011 to create a "simple and lightweight" online dating service connecting friends of friends – hence the name "Hinge." Alas, a year later, Tinder appeared and won the jackpot with its location-based matching. To bounce back, the founder, approaching thirty, went back to the drawing board in 2015 and relaunched the site based on the "always love" model.

3. Love

Justin McLeod was anything but the perfect son-in-law. Quite the opposite! After meeting the love of his life at university , "falling down the stairs one drunken night, fresh out of rehab," the young man, unable to fight his demons, was dumped by his girlfriend, Kate. She moved to London, he straightened himself out and enrolled in business school, not without missing the love of his life. Too late? A journalist from the "New York Times," who came to interview him on Hinge, encouraged him not to give up on his dream. The handsome young man bought a ticket to Zurich (yes, it's "too much" ) and reunited with his sweetheart, who was about to get married. End of story? Not at all! In 2015, this fairytale was featured in the American newspaper's "Modern Love Essays." And in 2019, Amazon Prime featured him in the second episode of its popular eponymous television series. Today, the former bad guy is still married to Kate.

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According to the platform, 18-25 year olds make up the largest share of Hinge's audience (56%). Zohran Mamdani and his future wife, Rama Duwaji, "matched" in 2021, when they were 30 and 24 years old respectively. The newly elected mayor of New York is therefore a bit older, but his candid admission aligns well with the values ​​of Generation Z.

Today, Hinge has been fully acquired by the giant Match Group, the parent company of Meetic and Tinder. At a time when dating apps are losing momentum, Hinge stands out as a model student: globally, a date is arranged every two seconds thanks to this newcomer which, in two years, has climbed to 2nd place in France in terms of downloads.

"Designed to be deleted." Upon entering the American market, Hinge presented itself as the anti-Tinder: no frantic swiping typical of a consumer society focused on fleeting encounters. Its founder proclaimed loudly and clearly: people don't come to his app for a one-night stand (although that's certainly an option), but to find love with a capital "L." When launching in France in 2023, he told "Le Nouvel Obs" about his users: "People have to fill out very complete profiles […] It's not just a photo and a short bio. If they're really looking for their soulmate and a serious relationship, they have to be guided by a strong intention."

In fact, creating a profile on Hinge is a real ordeal, involving a lengthy questionnaire that asks about, among other things, sexual orientation, the type of relationship sought (from a life partner to a short-term fling), as well as height, religion, origins, political views, and so on. And while it's possible to avoid answering certain questions, skipping the six mandatory photos or videos is out of the question. It's worth noting that a young woman boasted on TikTok about having rejected Zohran Mamdani because of his height. And internet users have been alternately praising the new mayor of New York's honesty—or mocking the " gaffe of the century ."

Before introducing generative artificial intelligence (AI) (since this summer in France), Hinge touted the power and specificity of an algorithm "based on the Gale-Shapey theorem," which mathematically described the stability of pairs and dated back to… 1962. With clear-sightedness, Justin McLeod explained : "It doesn't matter how good your algorithm is. Technically, it's good primarily because of the data you input."

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