 Alright, so I know you came to The Verge's YouTube page to hear about the new Pixel phones, but today we aren't talking about that. Instead, we are talking about dating apps because us tech nerds deserve love just like everybody else. I'm going to help teach you how to get better at dating apps and hopefully help you find some love. Full disclosure though, I'm single too, but to be clear, it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with all the trash humans in New York City. I report on dating apps for The Verge, so I have a pretty clear idea of what makes the dating apps different from one another, how you should pick your best profile photos, and how to send the first message. So we're going to go through this together and then when you end up meeting the love of your life because of me, you can write and thank me. So to get started, you're going to obviously need to figure out what dating app you're going to use. How much time do you have to dedicate to dating and filling out a profile? Are you really serious about certain things like religion? Do you want more of a serious thing or more of a fling? There's truly a dating app for everyone. You've probably heard of Tinder and Bumble, but there's also gay dating apps like Grindr and Scruff, relationship-oriented apps like Hinge, which is what I use, Coffee Meets Bagel and OkCupid, and religion-based apps like J-Swipe and Christian Mingle. So there are lots of dating apps. The key thing to remember is you just want to use the one where you think the people you want to date are. Think of dating apps like bars. I wouldn't go to a sports bar on football Sunday because I don't really like football. But basically, dating apps have specific values which affects how they're designed and the communities they create. Bumble, for example, prioritizes women's experiences by only allowing women to message first. Meanwhile, Hinge thinks messages are more important, so it allows people to like a specific thing about another person's profile and comment on it before matching. That person will then see your comment and can then decide if they want to match with you to keep the conversation going or skip. Tinder, on the other hand, requires both people to match before allowing anyone to message. So think about how you want to interact. I like to use Hinge because I'm looking for a more serious relationship and swiping on Tinder feels kind of superficial to me. Now with that said, it takes a long time to fill out your Hinge profile. You have to include a bunch of photos and answer a bunch of questions, but I really appreciate the people who do that because I get a better sense of who they are as actual human beings. Okay, so now that we've picked out our app, let's fill out our profile. Okay, first let's talk about photos. I've got lots of photos of myself here that I have printed out, just like any normal person in 2018. The most obvious rule of thumb here is to make sure your photos actually show off your face and that you don't use a ton of group shots. So I have a couple photos like this, has to go, this should probably go, this definitely gotta go. And I love my friends, but they gotta go too. See ya. Let's discuss selfies a little bit here. Selfies are great. I love them, but you should not use too many of them on your profile because the people who are looking at you want to know that you're a real human in this world. So as much as I love this picture, it's gotta go. Now you also want photos of yourself doing activities. I'm a tech reporter, that's not very exciting, but I love to eat. So here I am with nachos, here I am with an empty plate. Anyone who looks at my profile should know this girl likes to eat food. Last but not least, don't have anyone who could potentially be your lover in your photos. Even if it's your brother or sister, if anyone has to look at that photo and be like, hmm, who is that person? No. Okay, so I'm pretty satisfied with the photos we've chosen, so I'm gonna move them right over here. And on Hinge, you have to answer prompts. One of their prompts is where to find me at the party, and there's a bunch of ways you could answer this, but some answers are better than others. So I talked to the CEO of Hinge, and he told me that for this prompt, lots and lots of people say, hanging out with the dog or the cat or whatever, which is a fine answer and cute, but honestly, it's been done, so no. This emoji and not on the dance floor, I don't really know how people would respond to this, and also it's kind of negative, so I'm just gonna not do that. I'm down to two answers here, one of which is pretty positive and the other which is negative. And one of them is easier to respond to than the other. You really want people to be able to read your profile and have something to say to you without having to think too hard. It's because of that, I'm keeping the dips answer. I'm from the Midwest, I love dips, it says a little bit about me, and hopefully someone will message me and tell me about their favorite party dip. I'm definitely gonna take a picture and show my mom my beautiful project I did at work today. But yeah, this is a great profile, I'm really satisfied with it. Now let's talk about messages. The advice here is super clear. Don't rely on basic comments like hey or hi or how was your weekend? Ninja CEO tells me that a confident statement actually performs 25% better than a question in terms of whether a conversation moves off the app. So try a confident statement like, I don't know, spinach artichoke dip is the best. Let's assume you're now in a great conversation. That's enough to ask someone out on a real date. Most people just wanna know that there's enough to go off conversation-wise to actually have a drink or coffee or go on a walk with someone. Just don't make your first date an entire plan for a day because you might not actually like this person and you do not want to be stuck with them. Here's my PSA now where I need to say that you need to stay safe out there. Online dating still means meeting strangers from the internet, and that's scary. So make sure you tell your friends and family where you're going and maybe even share your location with them through Find My Friends or Google Maps. Definitely make sure they check in with you throughout the night. Alright, so with that said, let the games begin. I love it! Oh my god. Oh no!