Tinder users are changing their locations to match with athletes at the Winter Olympics
Apparently watching the Winter Olympics on television will no longer suffice in making people feel at the very heart of the action. These days, people are changing their Tinder locations so they can swipe on athletes at the Olympic Villages in South Korea.
According to Tinder data, there's been a 1,850 percent increase in swipers "passporting" to the Olympic Villages, where the athletes are staying. Tinder Passport is a feature which allows users to change their location to connect with people anywhere in the world. That means anyone with a Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold account can switch their location to Pyeongchang if they want in on some Olympic action.
And, users in Pyeongchang are apparently "giving away right swipes like hotcakes." Tinder says it's seen a 348 percent increase in overall Tinder usage in the Olympic Villages, a 565 percent in right swipes, and a 644 percent increase in matches.
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In Tinder's ranking of the top 10 countries "passporting" into the Olympic Villages, the U.S. gets the gold medal. Sweden wins the silver medal, and the UK isn't far behind with a bronze medal.
Top Countries Passporting into the Olympic Villages
1. USA
2. Sweden
3. UK
4. Canada
5. Switzerland
6. Germany
7. France
8. Australia
9. Netherlands
10. Argentina
Tinder has given all its Olympic Village users free access to Tinder Gold during the games, which allows them to match with swipers from around the world. So, those of you swiping on your fave athletes might not have to fork out for a ticket to South Korea just yet.
Happy swiping!
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
