Tinder, a popular dating app, recently teamed up with PETA to fight against the next frontier in animal cruelty: taking selfies with tigers to put as your default photo on the hook-up app.
In a post on July 28, Tinder called for users to “Take Down the Tiger Selfies.”
“It’s time for the tiger selfies to go,” the page reads. “More often than not, these photos take advantage of beautiful creatures that have been torn from their natural environment. Wild animals deserve to live in the wild. PETA says now is the time to rid the platform of tiger photos in honor of International Tiger Day on Saturday July 29th, and we could not agree more.”
Instead of having a photo with a tiger in your lineup of photos on the app, Tinder suggests changing your pic to one that shows “how much you care about the environment and the animals that inhabit it,” such as photos that show users planting a tree, drinking rosé, and eating at a vegan restaurants.
Because nothing screams "manliness" like eating at a vegan restaurant and drinking rosé.
Tinder also stated they were donating $10,000 to the group Project Cat, an organization dedicating to protecting tigers.
In a post on the PETA website on Aug. 3, the organization writes, “No tiger on Earth has ever wanted to help a human score a date or a hookup,” before praising Tinder for its call to get rid of tiger selfies.
PETA defends Tinder’s move by claiming, “Behind every photo op or paid ‘encounter’ with an exotic animal is a life of deprivation.”
According to PETA, tigers that are used for photo-ops are “removed from their mothers within hours or days of birth” and reportedly have their spirits broken so they’re accustomed to interacting with humans.
At the end of their post, PETA tells people to “keep your photos compassionate” by “never” going to a place that offers up the opportunity to take a photo next to wildlife.
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