September 5, 2018.
Tinder finally has a web client! This means that everyone can use their computer keyboard to type message. It also means Tinder is now super easy to script 🎉
This may come as a surprise to some but there are lots of quality peeps on Tinder, and my house is always passively recruiting. We use the ABC's: Always Be 'Cruiting.
So I repurposed my profile:
Jason, 29
I'm actually here to passively find future housemates for the Archive - a badass, multigenerational community house that is slowly expanding to a whole city block near Dolores Park. Don't date me: date my brilliant, intentional, high-EQ friends 😎
http://archive.house
(As for me: Tinder worked! I'm taken.)
And I wrote a JavaScript snippet that auto-swipes whenever someone's profile matches a keyword. I'm looking for things like "PhD", "improv", "physics", "founder", or (fingers crossed) "paleontologist".
Here's the snippet as a Chrome extension, which includes installation instructions and an options page where you can drop in your own keywords. It tries to behave like a human by swiping at irregular intervals.
Neat! Nobody tell Tinder.
It does swipe right sometimes... just not in this video. My keywords are high precision (people I swipe on are probably good) as I don't mind low recall (I'm gonna pass a lot of good people).
After 10 minutes or so:
Update, June 2021: shockingly, this was not a recruiting game-changer. A handful of people applied, but none became housemates. A friend did use it to find dates, though.