As GIF support is increasing in more and more messaging apps, it was just a matter of time before it found its way into dating services. And two top companies in these respective categories are collaborating “just in time for Valentine’s Day,” because nothing’s more romantic than a GIF.
That’s right, you can now send your favorite eye roll GIF to that guy who sent you a shirtless picture on Tinder. The popular hookup app is working with Giphy, so all you have to do is tap the blue button above your keyboard in the Tinder app to access Giphy’s huge database of GIFs for every situation. You can browse the trending section to send something you like, or search the database for a specific GIF.
It’s pretty similar to how Giphy works on Facebook Messenger, except Giphy is the dominant — and only — company providing a database of GIFs to Tinder.
The collaboration has apparently been a long time coming, according to David Rosenberg, director of Business Development at Giphy. The two companies recognized that conversations were becoming more visual, and what’s better than a GIF to break the ice?
“Tinder and Giphy had a bunch of obvious opportunities to work together — Tinder is a place where people connect with each other, and Giphy is the future of the way people communicate with each other — so we knew there had to be something there,” Rosenberg said. “GIF communication has this unbelievable ability to bring people together very, very, very quickly together. So if I share a GIF of a TV show that you know, and you also realize that I clearly picked that GIF over the thousands of other GIFs to create a kind of closeness, and we think that is going to work really, really well on Tinder, where people are looking to date.”
The integration is live in the Tinder app, but it won’t be active for everyone until later today. You can grab the app here for Android and iOS.
