I Analyzed 100 Male Bumble Bio’s And This Is What I Learned
Why did I do this?
So many of my female friends have complained about the quality of the profiles that exist on online dating sites and I as a straight male couldn’t ever understand it. I always remember women having pretty good profiles. They make an effort, have decent photos, paint a good picture of their personality, but I’ve been told time and time again that male profiles are much worse. They generally aren’t actually complaining about the quality of the men, they are literally complaining about the effort put into the profile.
So as any nerd would do, I decided to find out and put some numbers to it.
I borrowed one of my female friends' bumble accounts and analyzed 100 profiles using strict scientific criteria. Okay maybe not scientific, but it was strict.
I went about trying to create the criteria to judge the profiles based on reading various Reddit posts on women giving men advice on their profiles. I’ll link to those posts below if you want to check them out.
The Criteria
I have categorized the criteria into 4 tiers, based on what I (and Reddit users) feel is important for a great profile. Tier 1 had the most important criteria, then tier 2 and so on.
Before I get into each criterion, and why they were put in which tier, here are all of the criteria and their respective weights.
Criteria Weight
Profile has all the questions/tags that are required. 25.00%
Profile clearly displays the face on the first photo. 15.00%
Profile doesn’t have any pixelated or unclear photos 10.00%
Profile doesn’t have any selfies 10.00%
Profile has photos in at least three different settings 10.00%
User has completed the bumble verification 10.00%
Profile doesn’t have any negativity 5.00%
Profile only has a maximum of one group shot 5.00%
Profile has a full body picture 5.00%
Profile has a picture that shows an interest 5.00%
Tier 1: Personality
This tier has only one item and it’s weighted at 25% of the score because, believe it or not, it’s very important to show your personality on a dating app.
Profile has all the questions/tags that are required - 25%
So for bumble, filling out the entire profile includes putting an ‘About Me’ section, selecting some tags and answering 3 more questions about yourself. If I’m being generous, doing this well, might take 20 minutes, tops. It’s the most important part and it only takes 20 minutes to do, so obviously most men have done it right, right?
Spoiler: Most men have not done it right. More on that below.
Tier 2: Your face, it’s handsome, show it off
This tier, just like the first one, only has one item. It’s weighted at 15% because it’s the first thing that someone sees about you on a dating app.
Profile clearly displays the face on the first photo - 15%
Is being able to see someone’s face clearly when swiping through the apps too much to ask for?
The number of pictures with their heads turned, pictures with sunglasses on, pictures that are blurry, pictures 84 feet from the camera is surprising. I get that one might not have an abundance of photos to use, especially during a pandemic, but why do so many men select these photos as their FIRST photo?
Tier 3: Quality, quality, quality
Tier 3 has four different criteria. All equally important. They show the effort you put into your profile and they are weighted at 10% each.
Profile doesn’t have any pixelated or unclear photos - 10%
Ahhh the classic, “I have a picture from 2017 that I look really good in so I’m going to add it and zoom all the way into my face” picture.
Profile doesn’t have any selfies - 10%
Did you know that selfies are unattractive because no matter how much you try, you’ll distort your facial features because you can only get about 1 foot away. You’d have to get about 5 feet away for your facial features to not be distorted and even Kawhi Leonard doesn’t have 5 foot long arms so you don’t either. Angles, lighting and filters aren’t a good substitute for you having normal human size arms.
Stop with the selfies. If you must do it, then make sure the camera/phone is mounted and you use a timer.
Profile has photos in at least three different settings - 10%
There was that one event where you dressed up and took like 4 pictures where you look really good, so you use all 4. What does that show? It shows that you went to one event and wore a suit (or something you looked good in that day) It doesn’t show anything on the personality front, that’s for sure.
User has completed the bumble verification - 10%
There’s a term in business called ‘low hanging fruit’. I personally think it’s one of the silliest terms but for anyone who hasn’t heard of it before, here is the definition:
the obvious or easy things that can be most readily done or dealt with in achieving success or making progress toward an objective
The bumble version of this would be to verify your account. It takes 10 seconds; you hit verify and bumble asks you to put your thumb up. Bumble’s servers scan your picture and make sure it matches the ones you’ve posted and done. Congrats, you are now a real person and not a bot to everyone swiping.
Everyone does it right? It’s such low hanging fruit.
Again, spoiler: They don’t.
Tier 4: Final touches
We’ve reached the final tier. This tier everything is weighted at 5% and really adds the finishing touches to your profile.
Profile doesn’t have any negativity -5%
This is self explanatory, why do people say negative things in their profile? Do they think people want to date negative people?
Not much to say on this one except, be positive.
Profile only has a maximum of one group shot - 5%
For all my fellow 80’s/90’s kids, this is like playing Where’s Waldo on Bumble right? There are 3 group shots and in each one you are trying to spot where the guy is in each of them. Then when you get to the last two unknown people, you debate which one he is of the two that kind of look like him. Fun times.
Profile has a full body picture - 5%
When people are judging attraction, they want to judge if they are attracted to all of you. Not just the top half of you. Your legs are important, don’t discount them.
Profile has a picture that shows an interest - 5%
You can say that you are really into cooking, but you know what is even better than saying you are really into cooking? Having a picture of you cooking! A picture that shows personality adds so much to your profile. It shows that you are a person with hobbies and interests. Who doesn't want to date someone like that?
Alright, on to the findings!
What we found
A dislike for writing
I know pictures are important but writing words to describe who you are may be even more important to find a potential match. That’s why it was surprising that only 28% of men filled out their entire profile. Of the 72% who didn’t fill out the profile, the amount they filled it out really varied; from zero words or only a few words like ‘fully vaccinated’, to half the profile filled out.
It’s anecdotal, but even of the 28% that filled out everything, I’d say only half of them really put some thought into what they were writing.
A love of selfies
Selfies, selfies everywhere. A shocking 71% of profiles included a selfie. Some of them even had multiple selfies. There were even a handful of profiles where they had 5 pictures, all selfies. Gym selfie, car selfie, bed selfie, every selfie imaginable.
The lowest hanging fruit
Earlier I wrote about how getting verified is the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to dating. You’d think all of the profiles would be verified right? Nope, only 71% were.
29% of the men couldn’t even spend 5 seconds to take a thumbs-up selfie for Bumble.
Wide-ranging results
The results were all over the place but one person did score a 10 on our criteria which was the highest score. They hit every criterion on our list.
The lowest score on the other hand was a solid 0.5. That person only got a pass on ‘Profile doesn’t have any negativity’ and that was because they didn’t have any words in their profile. Can’t be negative if you don’t write any words I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How the men did
So the most important stat, how did the men do? The average score was 4.85 and the median score was 4.5.
Here is the score distribution, as you can see; it’s a whole lot of average.
If we took 5 as the passing grade like it is in school, 64% of the men failed and only 36% of the men passed.
This does tell a story for the men out there on dating apps. It tells the story that you can stand out with some effort. Unfortunately, dating apps are what they are and they aren’t going to significantly change, however, you can change your profile so that you’re showing the very best version of yourself.
Some final thoughts
To the ladies out there swiping through this. I’m sorry. I, as a male, declare that we need to do better. I’m trying to do my part by writing this blog.
To the men out there, the bar for profile quality is so low. At this point, the bar is on the ground and half the men on those apps are still tripping over it. The easiest way to improve your success on these apps is to spend some time and improve your profile. Women are looking for someone who will put in an effort. It’s a fair ask, you should expect the same from them. But if you can’t even put an effort into your profile, how can they trust you’d put an effort in a relationship?
Resources
