If you’ve been desperately swiping left and right on Tinder hoping to match with the rich, famous and single, you’re probably not going to find them on your feed, pal. And it’s not because celebrities don’t use the app. On the contrary. It’s because they’re on a top secret exclusive version of Tinder that none of us knew even existed.
Well, it's not so secret now but Tinder Select is the member-only version of the dating app that is apparently only meant to be for a particular type of Tinder user. According to a source who’d managed to level-up to this special layer of exclusive dating, Tinder Select is ‘for celebrities and people who do really well on Tinder’, reports TechCrunch. So basically Tinder has taken the premise of all of those cringe celebrity matchmaking TV shows and put the power in their very wealthy hands.
And before you reach for the App Store, it’s not an add-on that you can buy your way into to get yourself a date with insert name of dreamy single celebrity here. It looks like you have to be invited to Tinder Select by either an existing Tinder Select member or the Tinder gods themselves. Sorry. We’re not too sure how Tinder decides that you’re worthy of the elite version of the app, but to be fair if you’re already a legitimate VIP in real actual life, then I imagine people will recognise your name and hook you up pretty swiftly.
It’s been knocking about for a little while now too. TechCrunch also reported that the VIP edition has been going for at least about six months after finding a Reddit thread where someone asked other users if a mysterious ‘S’ (for Select, obvs) appeared at the top of their Tinder screens as well. But apparently you can switch between regular Tinder and the special version if, you know, you ever get bored of what's on offer in celeb land and want to mingle with us lowly not-famous singles instead.
It's all quite frustratingly fascinating, really. It goes without saying that we all want to hear the juicy details of what actually goes down on Tinder Select, but at the same time, there's quite an exciting layer of mystery around it. And it might also explain away those weird celebrity couples that seem to happen out of nowhere - you know the ones. Like when you see a big splash in the tabloids about A-list celebrity X leaving a restaurant hand in hand with D-list celebrity Y even though you're pretty sure from your extensive Instagram stalking that they don't move in the same circles. That was almost definitely probably Tinder Select, guys.
Like this? You might also be interested in…
Follow Jazmin on Twitter @JazKopotsha
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.