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[–] 73 points 1 day ago* (56 children)

As a straight cis man that’s been on many dating apps but doesn’t fish, can someone explain why this phenomenon is still happening? Because it’s been a joke for years that women think it’s stupid, I’d have hoped that had filtered down by now

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  • [–] 83 points 1 day ago (15 children)

    I think it's because men are generally very indifferent to taking photos of themselves that they never just do random selfies or take pictures with each other, and thus have something to choose from. Like, women seem to love taking pictures together with their friends, before going out, while out, or after getting home. It's fun for them. But have you ever seen a group of fellas getting ready to go out, and they are like "Omg guys we look so pretty, let's get some cute selfies together before we go out! Okay let's do a serious one, then a bunch of silly ones!" Women seem to take a lot of photos just for the sake of having the photo of themselves. Which is quite nice, really, they are having fun and taking pride in themselves. They also practise a lot, so they end up being pretty good at getting a nice photo with good lighting, angle ect. But fellas only seem to take photos of each other or themselves if they are showing off something they acquired (fish, motorcycle, car, woman).

    So when choosing photos, they have a lot slimmer pickings. There's the fish one, there's the photo they took with their ex, and there's the one of them sitting on the motorbike with the helmet on. Then they try to do a selfie but they have no idea how to do a good selfie so they end up under flourescent lights against a white wall looking like a fucking Harkonen and get demoralised, so they use the fish one.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Then they try to do a selfie but they have no idea how to do a good selfie so they end up under flourescent lights against a white wall looking like a fucking Harkonen and get demoralised, so they use the fish one.

    Eventually they learn the daylight car selfie from the driver's seat, which looks decent because the roof cuts off the harshest shadows from direct sunlight but the blue sky all around the windows creates diffuse lighting with great white balance.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 day ago (10 children)

    I hate taking pic's of myself can confirm. And I'm not even that ugly.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Best hint i ever got regarding photos: focus your eyes at a spot a few centimeters ABOVE the camera, while not facing the camera dead on - rotate yourself a few degrees (which side works better depends - gotta try it out). Makes photos of you a lot better looking for nearly no effort.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Ugh, I hate how some genius decided to put the screen below the camera, so like in video calls or whatever, if I'm looking at the person on the screen, and then I catch a glimpse of the corner where it shows me my own camera, it looks like I'm looking down because the lens is above the screen. So everyone probably thinks I'm ogling their breasts or whatever.

    And then I get anxious and start overthinking it and can't pick one place to look, so then I probably look shifty-eyed and people likely perceive that as suspicious...

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 child)

    But if you go on a dating app, don't you collect some new pictures? Like you can take a picture, or ask someone else to take a picture of you. People are intentionally deciding to upload the fish pic

    (TBF, there are some women who upload the fish pic too. 100% of the time I did not swipe right. Maybe they're the ones looking for men with fish pics?)

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  • [–] 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I think a lot of people simply don't have many pictures of themselves, but they do have pictures of themselves with fish/deer because it's tradition to get a photo of yourself with someone you just killed. So they use that photo because it's literally the only kind of photo they have of themselves on hand.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 day ago (15 children)

    I mean. Like fundamentally fishing is just a hobby. If you’re into a hobby, doesn’t it make sense to have pictures of you doing your hobby on your dating profile?

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  • [–] 1 point 15 hours ago (2 children)

    I feel like a picture sitting by the water with a fishing rod would go over better than a dead fish.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago

    This is a big factor too. IMO it’s honestly no different than having pictures of hiking, biking or any kind of hobby. It’s a good way to attract someone who will at least be ok with your hobbies.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (10 children)

    In theory sure, all of the answers in this thread make sense in isolation. But not with the decade of conversation from women on the internet saying that’s an instant no, which I’ve seen on hundreds if not thousands of profiles and posts about dating apps over the years

    I understand wanting to match with someone that shares your hobbies but it just seems like kneecapping oneself for matches when we have this information.

    Maybe my circles just have expressed that more overtly but I thought it was well known that will limit opportunities. I guess if liking fishing is an absolute dealbreaker it makes sense in context

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

    I hear a lot of women say they don’t like the fish/deer pics too. But, I also see a lot of other women on dating apps with their own fish/deer pics. So. I believe I'm going to continue letting people do whatever they want.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I ain’t trying to stop anyone, I’m just trying to understand still doesn’t make sense to me but whatever

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Dating apps are kind of a numbers game, but they also aren't, right? You want to get a lot of matches, but you also want those matches to be people who you would actually date. The point of a dating profile isn't just to attract compatible people, but also to avoid incompatible people.

    If I'm into fishing (I'm not, it's super boring, but let's pretend), and someone else says "I would automatically swipe left on anyone who has a fishing pic," then wouldn't I want them to swipe left on me? Why would I want to match with someone who so strongly dislikes something I'm passionate about?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    Could be a bubble, I've heard women make fun of it too but I really only talk to liberal, urban, coastal women. But more conservative or traditional women who like a certain form of masculinity could like the fish pictures or at least be ambivalent to them.

    Like a third of young women voted for trump and tradwife content is very popular, I rarely talk to women like that though so idk what's going on in there head, maybe they see fish and think "provider" or something.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    What’s funny is I’m the type you describe: liberal/progressive, urban, coastal woman and I enjoy fishing. I’ve dragged my partner to the local pier at 5am just to catch nothing. He also enjoys fishing, but did not have a picture like that on his profile. It would not have turned me away if he did though.

    But I also come from a conservative-ish family of more folks who have fished and hunted for generations. Some the nasty Trumper conservative, others more conservative-lite but have voted liberal more often than not in the last 2 decades. I also started fishing really young.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I'd say hunting pics are openly conservative-coded because of the guns. Obviously there are hunters (and gun owners) who aren't conservative, but I just feel like hunting and guns are just gonna be a lot more controversial in general. Fishing is more grey area. It's vaguely conservative-coded, but it's also just gernally "outdoorsy." Ofc, I also live in a maritime area (Seattle) where fishing is pretty common amongst lots of different groups of people (indigenous people, hippies/punks, recent immigrants, etc), so maybe it comes off as more "openly conservative" in other regions.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    Yeah, that lines up with my experience too. I’ve lived on both coasts and fishing is a pretty common hobby in both states I have lived.

    I can also agree about the hunting being more conservative coded. The hunters in my family were the more conservative types, the strictly fishing are more grey area/conservative-lite types.

    Me? I just like casting a line and looking out at the water. I don’t even have to catch anything to be happy fishing.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    Maybe its a way of filtering people like that out?

    If you're so specific and irrational in your demands I'm not going to want to meet you anyway. Like setting your height to 5"11 specifically to avoid the kinds of women who absolutely insist on minimum 6ft

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  • [–] 18 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Probably similar to how a lot of incels and manosphere duds get advice from other men instead of women. They're in a little bubble. Maybe they don't respect women's opinions.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    I don't think there's anything like that in it. A lot of men just don't take a lot if any photos of themselves. Catching a good sized fish is one of the rare occasions and you are usually smiling and happy in that one.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    That could be. I'm not sure how the "many women don't like these pictures" fact didn't override that, though.

    When I was on the dating apps I got a friend to take some photos of me in the park

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    a friend

    Right. About that... I'm writing that in a jokey way but a lot of men don't have that kind of friends or don't feel comfortable asking to just take a picture for that specific reason or just for the sake of getting a pic.

    It's silly but it's a legit hangup some have. So it's again either a fish pic ("hey at least I'm smiling in that one and it's not a super awkward selfie"). I get their reasoning

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Here in the Midwest, there are a not-insignificant number of women with profile photos of themselves holding a fish or deer.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Just cause women find it stupid, doesn't mean they're not also turned on by it. We are multitudes.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Sorry saying stupid was kinda reductive of me, the rhetoric I have experienced about this topic is that it’s an instant “no” or “swipe left”. Which implies it being a major turn off for what has been in my experience ubiquitous, I know there are plenty of women that are into fishing and hunting who would be into it but even among that set I’ve heard it’s not a good way to attract a woman

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    You don't ask a fish for fishing advice. Ergo, you don't ask a woman for dating advice. Because women are non-sentient creatures meant to be hunted.

    Or something like that. It's hard to keep up with the multiple levels of crazy in the manosphere.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago

    In a couple of ways:

    • It's bragging to exhibit their skill and promote their status as a fisher/hunter. Women are attracted to status.
    • The exhibit of an acquired food animal portrays themselves on a primitive level as a provider of resources, which women are also attracted to.
    • The fish is vaguely phallus shaped.
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