Tinder Fish Profile

With 55 billion matches to date, Tinder® is the world’s most popular dating app, making it the place to meet new people. The most recent statistics on the users of dating apps reveal that the most popular dating app in the United States is Tinder. Bumble ranks second with 5.03 million users from the States, followed by Plenty Of Fish with 4.28 million and Match.com with 1.95 million. Tinder user statistics reveal that Tinder is downloaded 3.6 million times a.

Dating App Photo Size Guide: POF, OkCupid, Bumble, Hinge, Coffee Meets Bagel, Tinder (Cropping, Pixels, Dimensions, Aspect Ratio, Zoom, Blurry, Image Too Large)

As an online dating photographer and consultant, I realize how hard it is for many to capture good, natural photos for their profile. Once you capture that perfect shot, the worst thing to happen is to have it be distorted or cropped awkwardly. Profile picture sizes, pixelated photos, blurry photos, cropping, shadow reduction and lightening are crucial to making sure your photos are not ruined.

Most dating apps on the market have their own unique set of recommended sizes and aspect ratios (Length to Width ratios) and those I will get into later on in this post. Your photos should be clear enough so that when you upload them to any app they will not become distorted, cropped too tight or unnecessarily blurred because it is too small.

For similar tips and guidance for website and social media photos (Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter etc.), read this guide.

For those that have managed to get good photos for their profile (I estimate this is less than 15-20% of the total population), the last thing you want to do is let these good photos go to waste because you uploaded a photo that was too small or did not add an appropriate border to prevent unwanted cropping.

For additional tips on the types of photos to use on your dating profile and which photos to avoid, read this post.

How Many Photos Do I Need For A Dating Profile

You should aim for 6 unique photos (unique outfits, locations, poses etc.), 4 at the absolute minimum but 6 is recommended. Apps like Tinder and Match.com allow for more photos but don’t – usually there will be bad photos in those above 6 and you will be judged by your worst photo. Apps like Hinge require 6 photos to unlock additional preferences and filters.

Adding A Square Border To Photos

I typically do not recommend this approach but sometimes it’s needed to preserve the aspect ratio of some dating apps out there. At the risk of losing context for a photo, you should ensure that all the elements of your photo that make it a great photo are shown to users. If you must do so, you can use an app like Square Instapic to add a simple border to your photos.

It is recommended that you stick with a solid border color and don’t go Snapchat-esque with sparkles, emojis, etc. Kiss It Stupid Simple (KISS). MSPaint, Adobe Photoshop will also work but require a little more patience and skill.

Selfies and Distorted Images On Tinder, Bumble & Hinge

Unless you have an epic selfie, don’t use these photos. Aside from the camera quality, lack of interesting environments and awkward looks, selfies are typically taken at close distances. The closer the camera is to the subject or the face, the more it distorts (widens) photos. This is typically unflattering for most folks. No one wants to look bigger than they actually are.

Pro-tip: If you are struggling to take a selfie (solo or with a friend), ask a stranger to take the photo so you can get a better photo with the better camera (rear-facing).

Blurry Photos, Square Photos On Dating Profile Photos

Dating apps don’t have the best editors and cropping tools. Despite minimum sizes specified, you should always follow the recommended sizes (slightly larger than minimums).

Also, more dating apps use square photos, so I recommend editing photos into a square format before uploading them into the app. This should reduce blurriness caused by portrait and landscape images that are too tall or wide. For larger images, try reducing the size in a 3rd party photo editor because large photos (i.e. from DSLR’s) can also become distorted in the upload process.

Another solution to avoid blurry photos is to upload photos to your Facebook account first rather than uploading directly from your phone or computer. Many people have had success using this method when possible (when your Facebook account is linkedin to your account or use Facebook to login/register your account).

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Hinge Photo Dimensions, Aspect Ratios, Minimum Sizes, Recommended Sizes

Hinge Aspect Ratio: 1:1

Minimum Recommended Pixels: 640×640

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

Pro-tip: Best Prompts & Answers To Use On Your Hinge Profile.

Hinge Profile Photo Upload Options: Facebook, Instagram, or Upload from Photo Gallery on your Phone.

How Many Photos Can You Have On Hinge: 6

How To Add More Pictures On Hinge: Delete Facebook and re-install if having problems otherwise check permissions from your phone to let Hinge access your camera roll (might have to delete Hinge and re-install).

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Match.com Photo Dimensions, Aspect Ratios, Minimum Sizes, Recommended Sizes

Aspect Ratio: Flexible but 0.6:1 to 1:0.6 (square, landscape or portrait, but no panoramic)

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

Photo Size: <5 MB but more than 100 KB (0.1 MB)

Pro-tip: Avoid these mistakes on your Match.com profile.

Match Photo Upload Options: Facebook or Upload from Device Gallery

How Many Photos Can You Have On Match.com: 26 but cap it at 6 unless they are epic photos (you are only as attractive as your worst photo).

Match Photo Guidelines

Reasons for Photo Rejections:

Nudity, sheer or see-through clothing, sexuality
Drawings, caricatures, or other illustrations
Copyrighted images
Identifying information (ie, license plates, email or web addresses, visible street address numbers, etc.)
Illegal acts or violence
Minors alone in photos (without an adult included)
Guidelines for Primary photos

Match Primary Photo Rules

Your primary photo must include a good, unobstructed view of your face that’s big enough for potential matches to see you clearly. There shouldn’t be any other people in the photo.
If a photo was taken from further away and shows more of your body, we’ll make a thumbnail that just shows your face.

Even if a photo has a clear view of your face, it might still be too small to use as a Primary photo and will be marked as: “Additional Photo Only.” If you don’t have such photos, Match may not let you change nor update your primary profile photo.

Also keep in mind the following:

You must appear in the Primary photo.
Potentially offensive photos will not be posted.
Image files must be received in an approved format (eg, jpg, bmp, gif) and should be larger than 100kB and less than 5MB. (Please note, we convert all images to jpg to be viewed by all browsers.)

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Bumble Photo Dimensions, Aspect Ratios, Minimum Sizes, Recommended Sizes, Rules

Bumble Aspect Ratio: 0.6:1 to 0.7:1 (Portrait-centric orientation photos)

Minimum Recommended Pixels: 640×640

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

Uploading Photo Options for Bumble: Photo library, Facebook or Take a photo with your camera.

Pro-tip: Examples of Bumble Prompts To Use On Your Profile.

Bumble Photos Rules:

-No kids on their own. They must be in the photo with an adult, and fully clothed.
-No photos in bikinis/swimwear indoors.
-No pictures in underwear.
-No Shirtless/underwear Mirror Selfies.
-Face must be clearly visible in all photos.
-No watermarks or text overlaid.
-No pornographic material.
-No graphic hunting photos.
-No guns.

How Many Photos Can You Have On Bumble? 6.

Bumble Photo Guidelines, Bumble Moderated Photo List, Examples: https://bumble.com/en/help/why-has-my-photo-been-moderated

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Coffee Meets Bagel Photo Dimensions, Aspect Ratios, Minimum Sizes, Recommended Sizes

Aspect Ratio: 1:1

Minimum Recommended Pixels: 640×640

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

CoffeeMeetsBagel Photo Upload Options: Facebook or Upload from Phone Gallery.

Coffee Meets Bagel Dating App Review: https://eddie-hernandez.com/coffee-meets-bagel-dating-app-review/

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OkCupid Photo Dimensions, Aspect Ratios, Minimum Sizes, Recommended Sizes

Aspect Ratio: Flexible but 0.6:1 to 1:0.6 (square, landscape or portrait, but no panoramic)

Minimum Recommended Pixels: 400×400

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

OkCupid Dating App Review: https://eddie-hernandez.com/okcupid-review/

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Tinder Photo Dimensions, Aspect Ratios, Minimum, Recommended Tinder Photo Sizes

Aspect Ratio: 1:1

Minimum Recommended Pixels: 640×640

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

Pro-tip: A few good example bios to use on your Tinder profile.

Tinder Photo Rules: No nudity, no sexually explicit content.

How to Upload a Photo to Tinder (previously one had to use Facebook to upload photos but now you can upload directly from your camera photos on your phone).

Add: Tap the profile icon > tap the pencil icon or Edit Info > tap on one of the red + icons to add a photo.

Delete: Tap the profile icon > tap the pencil icon or Edit Info > tap on red X icon next to the photo you want to remove.

Rearrange: Tap the profile icon > tap the pencil icon or Edit Info > press, hold and drag photo you want to move.

How Many Photos Can You Have On Tinder: 9 (but 6 is suffice).

Tinder Photos Not Uploading, Tinder Failed To Upload, Tinder Pictures Won’t Load

1) Make sure you have the latest version of the app.

2) Make sure the photos are not too large (reduce size if necessary).

3) Try deleting the Facebook app and re-installing.

4) Upload photos from your camera and not from Facebook.

5) Slow mobile/wifi connection.

6) Upload photos one at a time.

Blurry Tinder Photos: Why Does Tinder Zoom In On Photos

Tinder will crop photos sometime and in doing so will make them blurry if they are not large enough or they are not cropped before uploading. Upload cropped photos vs using the internal Tinder tool.

How To Send Pictures On Tinder

Use a third party hosting site like Imgur or shared folder like Google Drive, Dropbox etc.

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The League Photo Dimensions, Pixels, Minimum Sizes, Recommended Sizes

Minimum Recommended Pixels: 640×640

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

The League Dating App Review: https://eddie-hernandez.com/the-league-dating-app-review/

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Plenty Of Fish Photo Dimensions, Pixels, Minimum Sizes, Recommended Sizes

Minimum Recommended Pixels: 640×640

Recommended Pixels: >=800×800

Maximum Photos Allowed: 8 photos, 16 for premium members

For additional tips on all things dating photos related, check out my other posts here: https://eddie-hernandez.com/category/dating-photos/

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Grindr Photo Dimensions, Aspect Ratio Best For Grindr

Recommended Pixels: 1028 x 1028

Recommended Maximum Size: <1MB

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Zooming In & Cropping Photos, Photo Crop Online

When it comes to zooming in and cropping, you need to consider the subject you vs. the environment and background. Often time folks either zoom in way too close for a selfie distorting the subject’s face (making it wider – unflattering) or use photos that are too distant and hard to recognize the subject.

If you have one photo with you in the distance but it is a beautiful scenic location or travel destination, this is completely fine to use (just don’t make it your first photo or use too many distant, dark or blurry photos). You need a few photos close up (1/4-1/2 body to see how you look close up and full body to see your physique and style).

On apps like Tinder, your photos may be zoomed in too closely so you should crop before uploading so you have more control on the final layout. If you are looking to crop your photo, don’t use online photo cropping services. Your phone is usually the best source as it has capabilities in the default photo app without sacrificing privacy of photo croppers online. If you are on a desktop, MSPaint is suffice.

Also, the fatal error people make with photos is zooming in or cropping way too close. The same rules for a headshot apply here: No floating heads, including shoulders and make sure your frame doesn’t comprise more than 70% of the frame.

If your face takes up 85-95% of the frame – too close! Scoot back!

Emailing and Texting Photos On Dating Sites

If your friend took a photo on their phone and you are looking to get a photo from them to use for your dating profile, ask them to email it to you vs texting it to you because texting photos will reduce photo size and quality greatly to speed up send time. Don’t rely on screenshots either as that will constrict the size of the photos even more.

Reducing Photo Sizes That Are Too Large For Dating Apps

Some sites like Match.com have a maximum size limit on photos, <5mb. Most DSLR cameras will provide photos larger than this anywhere from 6mb to 12mb or more.

In order to use high quality photos, you need to use a photo-editing tool to reduce the size of your photos. MSPaint and Adobe Photoshop are great options on your laptop. I recommend desktop software tools vs. mobile apps mainly for privacy and security reasons (especially as of late).

Getting Full Size Photos / Backing Up Original Photos

With many photo-sharing, photo-editing, camera apps out there, it can be difficult to manage all your photos. I like using the Google Photos auto backup feature because you can back up original photos or at least photos at a large enough size that you can use later. These photos are sorted by output i.e. Facebook, Instagram etc.

If you try to download a photo from Facebook it will likely be done so at a reduced size and resolution quality. Keeping a backup of the original photo will be helpful if you decide to print photos, or use them later on.

Camera Settings: How To Take Good Dating Profile Photos

When it comes to taking photos, be sure to use your back camera of your phone instead of the front facing one. The back cameras on mobile phones often come with 2 different cameras and the one in front is usually a lower quality camera. Using the back camera is recommended to preserve the best size and quality for your photos.

Check your camera app settings to make sure your photos are being taken/saved at the highest resolution. There are usually several options for photos on your phone depending on the amount of space you have so be sure to do a quick check to make sure you are taking and saving photos with the highest quality dimensions.

How To Unblur Tinder Pictures

You can’t.

Tinder Won’t Load Pictures

Close the app and open it again. You might lose out on the profile though.

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Next Read: How To Look More Attractive In Your Dating Photos

Technical Read: Angles, Focal Lengths & Lighting Tips For Dating Photos.

Social Media Photo Guide: Sizes, Dimensions for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook & More

Tinder Profile Search

Best Photos For Your Dating Profile: Guide on Kicking Up Your Photos A Notch

Exhaustive Online Dating Checklist: How To Be More Successful With Online Dating

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About Eddie Hernandez

Eddie Hernandez is a professional photographer specializing in natural, candid online dating photos. Featured in the SFGate, ABC7News, East Bay Express, Salon; contributor to Good Men Project, Plenty Of Fish and Meddle. In addition to photos, he provides guidance around app choice, bio optimization, messaging techniques, wardrobe advice and date ideas. https://eddie-hernandez.com/contact/

Dating Profile Critique

For those of you who are remote or virtual dating help and are looking for anonline dating profile critiqueyou can read more about my services here.

For other helpful online dating tipscheck out my blog for more helpful advice: https://eddie-hernandez.com/blog/

Online Dating Frequently Asked Questions(Photos, App Choice, Wardrobe, Messaging, Bios and More): https://eddie-hernandez.com/online-dating-frequently-asked-questions/

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'I've been on Tinder for over a year and I've only ever gotten four matches,' I once proclaimed to a table full of people. 'And only one of those has ever responded to a message.' Upon hearing this information, a gay male friend cheerfully snatched my phone out of my hands and opened the app.

'What? That can't be right. Your settings must be wrong.' And then he actually proceeded to double check whether or not I had been doing Tinder correctly. I don't know if you've ever had a dating app with the difficulty of Candyland mansplained to you at a bar, but I can assure you, it's not cute. Of course, I hadn't been doing anything wrong; Tinder is just an atrocious app for queer women.

It occurred to me that most people don't take the numbers game into account when it comes to dating queerly. The CDC estimates that around 4 percent of the population is LGB- or 'something else'-identified. Of course, the estimate depends on self-reporting, and queer folks are not always great at coming forward, for reasons we can't possibly imagine. But even so, the non-hetero dating pool is significantly smaller, and many so-called 'LGBT' spaces only cater to gay men.

Because of that, LGBTQIA folks have known for approximately two decades what Tinder is just beginning to monetize: the Internet is a spectacular tool for meeting people with whom you'd otherwise never cross paths. But for dating apps to be fun to use, they need a wide userbase. And to have a wide userbase, they need straight people. And once straight people become their majority market, the app becomes myopically geared towards straight people, thereby diluting its usefulness to the people who arguably have a greater need for it in the first place.

Even gay-geared apps, in the hopes of finding success like heavy hitters Match and OKCupid, design their gender and sexuality options to mimic their straight counterparts. What's the point of catering to niche markets if you're not even going to bother researching their actual needs?

Check out Bustle's 'Save The Date' and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

But, in all honesty: people wanna grind. So in the spirit of swiping your way to success against all odds, I've heroically set up accounts on the most popular dating apps Google Play has to offer (plus some more obscure ones who are getting it right) to gauge their LGBTQ+ friendliness.

1. Match

Match is like the network TV of dating apps: it's really big (5 million downloads on Google Play alone), really well-funded, and madly swarming with normcore people of privilege. Basically, it's soulless and without charm. It's impossible to root for an app like this because it already has everything going for it; there's nothing remotely unique to champion here.

Unsurprisingly, the extent of its self-identifying options are 'man' or 'woman' seeking 'men,' 'women,' or 'both.' There's literally more nuance available in the options for how to describe your smoking habit ('cigar aficionado' anyone?) than in the options to describe your gender or sexuality. In other words, if you identify as queer, don't waste your data plan surfing Match.

2. OKCupid

OKCupid has a little more grit, and caters much more effortlessly to a younger audience. Also bestowed with the 5 million downloads badge on Google Play, its userbase is just as prolific as its predecessor Match, but with a refreshing We're Chill About All This Dating Nonsense And You Should Be Too bent. And realistically speaking, it's pretty much the Facebook of dating apps: everyone is on it, so how useful is it, really, to go to a smaller competitor who might have a few features you like better?

Tinder Search Name

For a mainstream, mostly hetero dating app, OKCupid made one important protection when it was first acquired by Match back in 2011: the 'I don't want to see or be seen by straight people' option. This does a ton of the leg work in eliminating creepy messages from bros trying to convince lesbians that they 'just haven't had it good yet.' This past November, OKCupid also expanded its gender and sexuality options to offer 22 possible gender identities and 12 sexual orientations.

Gone are the days of skimming for the obligatory '*queer not bi...**sexual anarchist not queer' footnotes in the profiles of folks who couldn't be summed up by the app's surprisingly limited self-identifiers, given its millennial-heavy user base. But don't get too trigger-happy deleting that tedious paragraph where you're forced to queersplain what a special snowflake you are. There's still one glaring area of OKCupid's pro-queer/gender options cause in which it continues to suck: the 'seeking' portion, which is arguably the entire point.

The options for 'I'm looking for' are still limited to 'women,' 'men,' and 'everybody.' Shit's not helpful when I'm looking for a FAAB transmasculine cutie to smooch and/or fix my broken dresser drawer. If OKCupid is going to go through the trouble of helping users self-identify in more authentic ways, then why not finish the job and help them actually attract and match with the sorts of partners in whom they're interested?

3. Tinder

Look, not everyone is searching for 'personality' in a match. Enter Tinder: the sleek dopamine rush your brain has been craving. As pretty much every queer woman knows: Tinder is god-awful. The 'interested in' mechanism doesn't care if you're looking for women; your feed will be flooded with dudes. The women it does show you then, ostensibly, might not even be looking for women, so your gaydar has to be super on-point. Plus, as much as I would love to while away my time in the Trader Joe's line swiping, I inevitably get a 'no more matches found near you' time-out after just a few minutes. If you're not straight, Tinder doesn't care about you. Tinder is not sorry.

4. DOWN

DOWN, formerly Bang With Friends, boasts 500,000 downloads and connects with your Facebook to let you swipe on your Facebook friends, and also their friends. Your 'looking for' options are — you guessed it — men and women. It automatically assumed I was looking for men, and when I changed it to women, it just displayed all my straight friends. It stands to reason, then, that, even when I expanded my search parameters to show me friends of friends, those women were also straight. A more effective friend-banging scenario might just be to send someone a flirty text saying come over and watch Netflix with the leaf emojii followed by the fire emojii.

5. Hinge

Tinder Catfish Profiles

Hinge is another one of the Facebook-linked apps designed to match you with friends of friends and friends of friends of friends. And, like all the other Facebook-based apps, its gender options are M/F and it's 'interested in' options are men, women, or both. Its actual gaydar appears to have a slight edge on DOWN and Tinder, but not by much.

6. How About We...

Although a brief perusal of the activity-based dating app How About We... yielded someone who I'm pretty sure is my soulmate, the object of my affection hasn't been active in two years, and this app features the same tired M/F option, looking for men/women/both.

7. Plenty of Fish

Plenty of Fish is larger than both OKC and Match, with 10 million downloads, which is remarkable considering it forbids users from identifying as bisexual (you can only seek men or women, not both) and using 'sexual language' in their profiles. I guess all gay fish just have to be switches?

8. Coffee Meets Bagel

Coffee Meets Bagel is super charming, because, when you set up your account, you can identify as either a mustache or a pair of kissy lips, seeking either other mustaches, or other kissy lips. (You cannot desire both mustaches and kissy lips, or, suffice to say, a mustache with kissy lips.) Then, for the rest of the time you use the app, your potential suitors are referred to as 'bagels,' you are referred to as coffee, and the mustache/kissy lips iconography never returns again. Actually going out and getting a bagel and coffee will be a more satisfying use of your time than trying to make Coffee Meets Bagel happen.

9. Dattch (aka Her)

We all had high hopes for Dattch when it rolled out nationwide. It generated a ton of media buzz as a 'first of its kind' dating app exclusively ~*for women*~. It earned credibility by offering verified profiles, rescuing you from sneaky dudes popping up in your feed. It even has a cutesy blog you can peruse in-app. Although it's a neat little tool and definitely different from the catch-all apps that target straight users, it's also a little...lesbian-centric.

It definitely has its place in the world and will appeal to certain queer-identified folks, but Dattch doesn't allow users to select a gender identity, which means that its developers either assume all users identify as women or they don't think it matters, as long as you're looking for women. Neither of those scenarios seem particularly inclusive for an explicitly non-hetero app. The sexuality identity options are broader than the generic gay/bi framework, and wander into queer, pansexual, and the ever-curious 'flexisexual' — but you can't search for mates by those same options. Users can't filter matches by gender (obvs) or sexuality, only by age and location. If an app straight up isn't going to offer typing by gender, then the least they can do is help users glean hints by filtering to appropriate sexuality markers.

10. Wing Ma'am

Literally, the only hope for the future is Wing Ma'am, which has a horrifically gendered name but is actually the most impressively inclusive option available to queer folks. It's set up to display not only people, but also events in your area, increasing your chances of meeting someone with whom you vibe. A bunch of the profile questions mimic OKCupid's, so it's an easy copy/paste, if you've already penned a flawless OKCupid profile with all the nuance and style of a Chuck Klostermann essay.

And finally, most importantly: the filters. Oh, the filters! There's only one master drop-down list from which users can select multiple options, and it includes markers across the gender, sexuality, and relationship preference spectrum: queer, questioning, genderqueer, trans, intersex, and polyamorous to name a few. It's also the only app of all 10 reviewed here that offers 'asexual' as a self-identifier, which huge and important gesture of visibility for a vastly underrepresented community.

And unlike OKCupid, Wing Ma'am users can filter their matches by the exact same list of identifiers. In other words, this is where I screen for my broken dresser drawer-fixing heartthrob. Other unique features include the option of seeking 'double dates,' which, sure, might just mean finding new friends to do couple stuff with, or, as I prefer to believe, is a perfectly subtle invitation for group play.

The only gendered hiccup on Wing Ma'am's profile questionnaire is a fill-in-the-blank stating 'I love my girlfriend because...' which I really wish said 'partner' instead of 'girlfriend,' because it's a well-conceived question and totally sweet. The other problem with Wing Ma'am is that it's newly launched, and thus, teeny teeny tiny — only 10,000 downloads to speak of on Google Play. But it really is the best, most inclusive, most customizable queer dating app on the market. One of the reasons Grindr is great is because it understands how important sorting by 'type' is for interacting with strangers. And when have you ever stood for gay men having more fun than you?

Images: Giphy;Match, OKCupid, Hinge, Dattch, Wing Ma'am/Facebook; Tinder, How About We, Plenty of Fish, Coffee Meets Bagel/Press Kit; DOWN/Twitter