In Brazil, backing the right presidential candidate can actually land you a hot date.
“Please tell me you’re not leftist, you’re too pretty to be one,” Vivian read in a message she received on dating app Tinder.
But Vivian supports Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a leftist who is one of two politicians facing off in the October 30 presidential runoff. So there was no match, a sign of how politics has penetrated intimate areas of everyday life.
In fact, the law of physics that opposites attract doesn’t always apply to dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Happn, and Grindr — certainly not in Brazil’s highly polarized dating world.
“I’m leftist (and) I’ll ask who you vote for. It’s important that we think the same way,” warns Gabriela S., a 25-year-old psychologist in Sao Paulo, on her Bumble profile. She asked that her last name be kept secret.
“It doesn’t make sense for me to associate with right-wingers,” said Gabriela, adding that she wouldn’t even enjoy a beer with someone who has racist views or contempt for the LBGTQ community.
Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right retired military officer who took office in 2019, have made their own space on social media to seek romance.
A Facebook group page called Bolsoteiros, a pun combining “Bolsonaro” with “singles,” has 6,700 members.
“The Left defends everything we disapprove of,” writes 46-year-old social worker Elaine Souza on the site she founded in 2019. But self-selected followers of her group “are halfway to finding a mate.”
The voting choice Brazilians are facing is so controversial that the political filter for dating apps is “the most used by Brazilians,” said Javier Tuiran, Bumble’s communications director in Latin America.
Use of the filter increased “in the months leading up” to the first round of the Oct. 2 presidential election, in which Lula received 48 percent of the vote and Bolsonaro 43 percent of the vote, Tuiran said.
– “We can work things out” –
“I (accept) only those who won’t vote for Bolsonaro… Everyone else, we can work things out,” read Rafael’s Tinder profile, 37.
Sorting out political differences can prevent a relationship from starting off on the wrong foot.
Psychologist Ailton Amelio da Silva said that “some differences may be complementary, but they lead to incompatibility if they matter, as many now think in terms of politics” in Brazil.
Jose Mauro Nunes, a PhD in psychology and marketing professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said polarization in Brazil has ignited “tribal” identities and created bubbles on social media where individuals favor those with similar ideologies.
Some dating apps see marketing potential in only catering to one side of the political spectrum, such as Lefty.
“It’s hard enough to find a companion. Not having that (political) incompatibility is a huge help for a lot of people,” said Alex Felipelli, president of Similar Souls, owner of the Lefty app, which has 15,000 users.
Another example is PTinder, an Instagram account with 26,100 followers that “aims to generate interactions, including with single announcements, among opponents of Bolsonaro,” said its creator Maria Goretti.
The 38-year-old lawyer said she was inspired by “friends’ fear of meeting someone and then, after an incredible night, realizing the next morning that (the person) is wistful of the dictatorship or other Bolsonaro-like ideas.” Has”.
Goretti said her Instagram account has already resulted in couples and even marriages.
