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NJ Woman Banned From Tinder For Urging Matches To #FeelTheBern
By
Emma Whitford
Published Feb 5, 2016
Modified Feb 6, 2016
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By
Emma Whitford
Published Feb 5, 2016
Modified Feb 6, 2016
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A 23-year-old clothing store manager from New Jersey was one of two women banned from Tinder this week, after she spent two weeks constantly swiping right and plying her matches with one simple message over and over and over again: “Do you feel the bern? Please text WORK to 82623 for me. Thanks!”
In terms of scale, Robyn Gedrich confirmed that she sent her copy-and-pasted endorsement about 60 times a day for fourteen days, prompting many people to assume she was a bot and report her to the app. Men who heeded Gedrich's request got campaign updates and Bernie volunteer signup links in return, according to Reuters.
"We whole-heartedly support people sharing their political views on Tinder, but we don't allow spamming. So feel free to spread the Bern, just don't spam," said a spokeswoman for the app on Friday.
But a bot, Gedrich is not.
"These guys are disgusting. They’re just looking for sex and that’s it,” Gedrich told BuzzFeed this week. “So if they’re going to swipe right, they might as well do some good and donate to the man, the myth, the legend, Bernie."
Gedrich has been unable to log back into the app since Thursday, but campaigning with potential one night stands hasn't yet proven problematic for plenty of other people, whose (sincere?) Bernie love is crowding Bernie Sanders' Dank Tinder Convos and a Tumblr called Tinder Campaigning.
Granted, reviews have been mixed, ranging on the latter from "go trump" to "lol I don't vote."
But since yesterday, Gedrich's Facebook wall has been stacked with links to blog posts about her tinder proselytizing. All told, that's pretty damn millennial, or at least more millennial than shelling out $250 to schmooze with Bill Clinton at the Brooklyn Bowl.
UPDATE: Reached by phone on Friday, Gedrich confirmed that she is still unable to log into Tinder, but is considering making a new Facebook account in order to get back on the app for Bernie.
"What I like about Bernie is the fact that he thinks that higher education is so important," said Gedrich, who used to study marketing at LIM College in NYC. "I had to drop out of college because I couldn't afford it anymore. I find it so important that he finds [higher education] important, and equality and kicking out corruption in the government."
Asked why Tinder was her chosen medium, Gedrich explained that it had proven an easy way to campaign on top of her full time retail job. "If I could I would definitely want to go out and campaign, but I couldn't get off work," she said.
As for the Dank Tinder Convos, Gedrich said she didn't know anything about them until yesterday. "I don't know if they are trying to be serious or just trying to be funny, and I don't want to be associated with being a joke because it's a serious issue for me," she said.
If Gedrich does manage to get back on Tinder, she says she'll take a different approach. "I could have gotten a bit more personal with it," she admitted. "But that's just my personality."
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