The Ben Mulroney Show - "Love APPtually" documentary -- The shocking truth behind dating apps

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

GUEST: Shalini Kantayya /  LOVE APPtually director If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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but there was a moment where admitting that you met somebody romantically online went from being something you were shy or embarrassed about to not. One day it was the exception. And the next day, in certain circles, it became the norm. And dating apps started popping up and you'd hear stories from your friends about how they met somebody. And if you were of a certain generation like me, you're like, maybe this is just the way it's done now. And then you would hear stories of people tiring of the apps or seeing the same people over and over on the apps.

And one asked himself, was it a moment in time? Are we going to transition back to meeting people in person? Well, one director has taken upon herself to do a deep dive into dating apps, especially Tinder, and what she uncovered in her person. perfectly named documentary Love Aptually, is worthy of a long discussion and certainly a view of her movie, which was at the Hot Docs documentary film festival here in Toronto. So please welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show, Shalani Kuntaya. Shalani, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Let's just get the first thing out of the way here. I don't know if you

came up with the name or somebody on your team came over with your name, but as soon as you heard it, you knew that's what it was going to have to be called, right? Yes, that was exactly right. My mother grew up on, sort of raised me on American classic romantic comedies. And so when I heard the name, I was like, that has to be the title of the film. Well, and it's interesting that you mentioned those rom-coms of days gone by because it felt as we were barreling towards the future and everyone seemed to be pairing up via these apps. Like goodbye, meet cute. There's, that's, that's not happening anymore.

People are just going to swipe their way to happiness. And, and that's going to be it. No more bumping into each other at the, you know, the bookshop around the corner. Exactly. I mean, I think the landscape of human courtship is not recognizable in the 15 years since the advent of Tinder. For most of human history, we have partnered, bought through, you know, our human networks and through chance encounters. and I don't think that you even have to have ever used a dating app to have noticed their impact on society. I noticed it as someone who is entrenched in the cultural life of New York City and loves to talk to strangers like any documentary, good documentary filmmaker.

And I've noticed, you know, just in the last decade, a massive difference in us not being as willing to engage and sort of awkward, messy art of human connection and talking to strangers. Yeah, well, we're going to delve into all of it. But I just kind of sort of want to just see where this thread goes because you mentioned it. You know, I have a lot of friends, a little bit younger than me, who have been on all the apps. And I have one friend who showed me so the conversations that he's had via these apps.

And at one point, I looked at him. I said, wait, so you connected with this woman. You seem to have a lot in common. and you've been talking for what seems like days and weeks, and you haven't met yet. It's like, oh, no, that does. I mean, if I were, I guess I'm part of a generation that wants to find the connection so that you can ultimately meet.

But he told me that the meetings actually don't happen nearly as much as somebody on the outside thinks they do. So much of it lives in the app. Well, some might say that's by design. Tristan Harris of the Center of Humane Technologies says that we should always look at the financial incentives of AI of these companies. And if you look at the financial incentives, it would appear that they are incentivized to optimize for loneliness and to keep us on the app. And there are class action suits that point to exactly that users that. claim that they have experienced sort of compulsive, addictive behavior as a result of the design of the app. Well, let's listen to a little bit of the trailer and then we'll get into what made you want to make this movie in the first place.

Here is a little clip of love aptually. When I first went on Tinder, I was dreaming of the husband, the children, maybe the dog, you know. I am a hopeless romantic. I'm using five different apps. Scruff Grindr, Tinder, Bumble, Hinge. Tinder made it into a game. It was a four week at the beginning. But it didn't last.

I found out that Tinder operates with a secret ranking system. Okay, so, Shalini, tell me what made you want to explore this? Because on the outside, somebody on the outside, it looks like these apps. whether you like them or not, whether they're built for human connection or hookup culture, that's, I just assumed that they were out there

so that people could match up. And you're saying that, you know, you uncovered that perhaps they are designed, they're designed to keep you apart so that they can keep you on the app. Well, Love Abhaw is the third in a trilogy

of documentary films that explore the impact of technology on our humanity. And what made, me want to explore dating apps is that this is the most intimate part of being human, our pursuit of love, our pursuit of partnership. And what I uncovered in the making of this film was quite startling. It's quite like a science fiction film. Like what would I would tell you if in the future humans lost their game and stopped talking to one another? And the majority of them met through

this app that was controlled by mostly one company. It sounds like the topic of a dystopian sci-fi, but it is very much the predicament of many people looking for love in the modern age. Yeah. Are people who are on these apps, are they naive to what you uncovered? Are they, and, you know, this idea that one company controls almost has a, like an oligarchy. They've got it that there's so many of those famous apps. are all under one umbrella group.

What explains that? Why would they have so many different brands essentially doing the same thing? Well, I think it's through no fault of the user that they don't know that they didn't uncover that Match.com owns more than two-thirds of the, two-thirds at least, of the dating app market here in the United States and Bumble and Match Group together

are 91%, which is a startling number. And I think what it makes users feel, though, even though they may not be aware of it, I think intuitively people feel like they don't have any other options, and it all starts to feel the same. And it kind of keeps people in this endless scroll. And I think it's something like social media where we sort of picked up these tools

without examining them. and then sort of look back and said, oh, I think there's something here that we need to examine and regulate and change our behavior around. You talked about the class action suits that uncovered that the goal is to keep people on the app more than it is to get them together. Do you think that's how they started? Do you think when Tinder started, when Bumble started, that was the goal?

It feels like they must have started with pure intentions than that. Well, the film sort of follows, you know, the history of dating through the 1990s when you said, when you're doing it on your desktop alone. And there was quite this stigma around if you were doing this alone on a desktop, that something was wrong with you that you were using technology to date. And it was the result of a multi-million dollar ad campaign by companies like Match.com and e-harmony, sort of the earlier players in the 90s that they started to draw commercials and sort of draw people in. And I think Tinder sort of was what made it into a game.

Sort of the gamification of dating through the mobile phone. And it's even based on, you know, sort of gaming logic. Like you win, you don't win. And it sort of stimulates unpredictable rewards in the brain. so it's almost like a casino slot machine. So you win sometimes, but not all the time. So you keep going, seeking the win. And that's why there have been lawsuits against them,

you know, saying that this is more optimized to keep you on the app than to develop human connection. Well, we're going to take a quick break, but we're going to have more with the director of Love aptually after the break. Don't go anywhere. We've got lots to talk about is joining these out. apps today. A Fool's Aaron. We'll figure that out next on the Ben Mulroney show. If you are one of the myriad people who have been swiping your way towards hopefully finding love,

and maybe you picked one app over another, you may want to listen to this conversation I've been having with Shalini Katanya, the director of the documentary Love Actually, you may have, you may not have known that the app that you chose over the other one is owned by the same company. As a matter of fact, one company owns the majority of that business. And you may also not know how much of your own personal data is being collected by these apps. And to what end? I don't know. So let's ask, Shaolin.

Shelly, why are they collecting so much data? And how much are they collecting? It's because we haven't fought back. I think that what is so astounding is the amount of, of data that they're collecting about us. And I think it's partly because we're not aware. You know, we just see the shiny interface. We're thinking about connecting with another person.

And we're not thinking about the multi-billion dollar company that is hoarding all of this data about us. And in Europe, where the French journalist that I cover in my film is based, there are laws. Because in Europe, they understand the history of, they have had a history of ordinary everyday data being weaponized against citizens. So they understand that data and information can be weaponized. And so they have some of the most comprehensive laws.

And so using European law, the journalist in my film asked Tinder for her data. And what she gets is 800 pages of her deepest, darkest secrets. And so you can just imagine how wonderful she feels. And for the for the data and and this is not to blame people on the app because they are in this impossible predicament. If you want to have human connection, you have to be vulnerable. You have to share of yourself. You have to be open. And and then and then this multi-billion dollar company is collecting all of that data about you. And we haven't implemented any laws that sort of, you know, would balance that power.

I mean, fundamentally, like the pitch for these apps, it makes sense, right? We're going to line you up with people you like. But it occurred to me, you know, I oftentimes play the old man screaming at clouds that, you know, the generation that exists today is never going to meet friction in its life, you know, if you, if you liked one song, the algorithm on Spotify is going to, is going to give you songs that are just like that one. and you're not going to discover music by accident. You're not going to stumble onto music.

And the same with movies and on and on and on. And I think the same goes, can be said, for these dating apps. You know, you don't know what you don't know, and you don't know what you like until you encounter it. And sometimes you find out what you like by encountering something you don't like. And these apps seem to be giving people a false sense of confidence over what they want. By you check the boxes and you tell us what you want and we're going to find that for you. But that's, for those who found love in a pre-app world, that's not how it works.

I mean, there's apps out there for people who like Star Trek. Well, I know plenty of guys who love Star Trek and the women they married don't even know the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars. And so, but they are happy in the love that they found. And yeah, it feels this overly curated existence. It might work for music. But when it comes to finding love, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, looking in the wrong places, if that makes sense? Well, absolutely.

I mean, I think featured in the film is Helen Fisher, who is a biological anthropologist and former chief scientist for match. And one of the things that she tells me is that long married couples who are still in love, the things that are overdeveloped in their brains are actually the empathy centers. So, identifying with someone else's feeling, other than your own and emotional regulation. And so a lot of the things that we are chasing in an online, the shiny qualities that we're chasing in an online setting have nothing to do

with the qualities that lead to long-term happiness. Now, I remember hearing a stand-up comic say once. He's like, I've been married for 45 years and my wife wanted nothing to do with me when we first met. But I pursued her and I courted her until I heard those three words that every man wants to hear. I give up.

And it was a joke. But, you know, like I often think about my parents. My mom hoped that after her first date with my dad, that it would be the last. And he drove away before she had a chance to say, I don't want to see you again. And eventually it stuck. In a world of apps,

had they been around when my parents were around, I don't know that they would have gotten together. And it's, do you think, though, if, if all of the ills of these apps are brought to the surface as you, as you are uncovering a great many of them in your documentary, are they salvageable? Is there a role for them, a positive role for them in sort of in our social lives? Or do they have to go the way of the dodo bird? Look, it's a cold, dark world out there. We need to look for love, cultivate love in every space that we possibly can. I think that what you said is really key because I think that we do have some power in our discernment and how we use more of our humanity when we use these apps. These apps are designed by values that may not reflect our own values.

You know, the first page of Tinder might be optimized for, you know, your best thirst trap photo and, you know, what your number age is. And that might have very little to do with the qualities that we're actually looking for. I've made three films about technology and AI and machine learning and algorithms. and as I look more into how fast technology is moving, I consider more and more what uniquely makes us human, and that is that we are deeply flawed, and that to sort of love one another, that we also have to extend some grace to one another,

and these predictive technologies are sort of offering a view of relationships that is frictionless, And sort of we don't have to ever be uncomfortable. And I think if those of us who have real relationships, you absolutely have to be uncomfortable and extend grace. Yeah. So much of the beauty in relationships comes from the mess that precedes it. You know,

it's so much of the passion in a relationship comes from running the gamut of emotions with that person and seeing where the happiness is on the other side. Sometimes you've got to chase. Sometimes you've got to figure. The courting allows you to actually, especially the early days when you're younger, it allows you to figure out what kind of person you are and the types of things you're looking for. And all of that seems to be short-circuited in a lot of these apps where it says, you know, you can avoid all that mess and you can go right to finding the person.

But it's the journey that gets you to the right person. On that journey, you may realize I've been chasing the wrong thing. So I don't know. I mean, it's what you're saying is exactly right. it's also because we've been given this illusion of unlimited choice. We now have this unlimited scroll that we never had before. I mean, it used to be that one of the big drivers of who we partnered with was proximity. You know, they lived in our neighborhood.

We sort of they were known. And now we have sort of this endless scroll where we're constantly swiping. And, you know, there's been studies that show that the paradox of choices like we sort of thinking capitalism, the more choices, the better. But the paradox of choices, that the more choices that we have, the less like we are to actually make a choice. And I feel like that's a situation of many people on dating up, seeking love. Shalini, thank you so much for joining me. What a wonderful conversation. I'm going to talk to you for an hour. The movie is Love Actually, and I really appreciate your time and I appreciate

the subject about it. This is fascinating. Thank you very much. so much for having me. It was a real pleasure. Firefighters missed their lives every single day. Friday's on Global. I'm going to get you out of here, bud. This is the greatest job in the world. An all new fire country. Firefighter, Leo. I need you to make your own rest of assessment.

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