ICYMI · Slate Podcasts

The Best Dating App Profile? A Sh*tpost

February 14, 2026·33 min·2 clips

A stated opinion like 'Europe 72' gets replies where travel lists do not.

Kate Lindsey opens the chat with writer Sonia Weiser. She asks the first-time-guest question about the earliest internet memory, and Sonia goes back to AOL's movie phone, where interviews and movie trailers were part of the scene and PC virus protection wasn't great. That memory sets the tone. From there, the episode moves into dating app profiles and the problem of giving people something real to react to, instead of another glossy picture or empty compliment. Pillows come up. Kate and Sonia talk through how the number of pillows, pillows between the legs, and even the habit of hugging one can become the kind of small detail that says something about a person. Peru comes up too. The point is that a travel flex can feel flat, while a weird preference or a tiny domestic habit can open a better conversation. Sonia keeps returning to the same idea. People want to talk about themselves, and if the prompt gives them a lane, they will take it. Kate connects that to podcasts. A good opening gives the listener, the guest, and the whole exchange somewhere to go, which is part of why the format works in the first place. The chat stays loose. It moves by recognition and quick jokes, then settles into a plain observation about how intimate and vulnerable those little answers can be when they surface in a first-date or second-date kind of way. Kate also brings in TikTok. Over the past few weeks, she has collected examples of people going beyond quirky and into true shitposting on dating apps, mostly through Hinge's voice prompt feature. One prompt in particular stands out. The example is a response to 'a quick rant about,' and the voice memo goes off in a deliberately absurd direction. That is where the episode lands. It is a conversation about how internet absurdity, oversharing, and a tiny opening can turn a profile into a place where people actually show up.

As heard by us

Dating app prompts become a neat theory of how people open up.

ICYMI turns a dating-app chat into a small, sharp argument about why prompts matter as much as polished photos. Kate Lindsey and writer Sonia Weiser move from a vivid AOL movie phone memory to Hinge voice prompts, where people volunteer pillows, Peru, and other oddly intimate…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A Hinge voice-prompt episode about giving people something to grab onto.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from ICYMI