It was a month ago when I first noticed the tigers. Grindr was leaving me feeling ground down, and OkCupid had been just, well, OK. So I thought about plumbing the untapped well of dating potential and signed up for Tinder to see what all those straight friends of mine were finding so scandalous.
The guys were nice, and I liked that the conversations tended to run deeper than “Looking?” But it felt the same, more or less, as any other dating site, and I wound up using it in the same way:
shopping for a mate the way you might buy breakfast cereal. You compare brands and find the one with highest fiber, the fewest artificial sweeteners and the toy you like. It was all pretty underwhelming, really.
Except for those tigers. Swipe right, swipe left, and there they were again in the background or, more often, foreground of another globe-trotting bachelor’s selfie. They seemed to be everywhere. Even more than pictures of Machu Picchu, a false mustache pic from a holiday-party photo booth or a day-drinking event at Dolores Park. The place was a regular tiger pit.
What the hammer? What the chain? What’s with all the tigers?
Where did they come from? Why are they there? Adults, cubs, juveniles, and always in the same general arrangement. There’s the man — his grin expansive, his arm extended — and there’s the indulgent tiger — delighting or at least tolerant of the attention, seated or more often lying down, but always in some sly angle of repose. Never standing. Never at attention. Never in some position suggesting Shere Khan has just about had it with the man cub. The most active they ever get is lying backside on the earth, their paws outstretched, inviting a little tummy scratch.
The trend wasn’t recent, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. Nor was it restricted to Tinder — that’s just where I picked up on it. There are world leaders in similar photos — though presumably for more strategic ends than some weekend nookie — and Tumblr accounts dedicated solely to tiger and exotic-animal selfies. The phenomenon has reached fever pitch. One might even say, Bieber pitch.
Don’t get me wrong — I wasn’t on Tinder to court exotic animals, but I found them a hell of a lot more interesting than the men they were with. Lions, elephants and wolves as well, but tigers were by far the most abundant and more memorable than any of the men.
Just what exactly could they all mean?
I wasn’t the only one to notice. A friend had picked up on it, too, and we talked about it over coffee. In her reasoned and polyamorous opinion, the tiger was a visual communiqué.
“It means they’re into kink,” she said. “Tigers equal kink.”
I could agree that in the visually coded language of online-dating profiles, the subject and the arrangement of images express far more than words ever can. Hence all those Machu Picchu pics. But her conclusion was entirely off, I felt. Sure, the best dating-profile pics convey some subtlety and mystery, and presumably a tiger selfie does say something more than “I like tigers.”
But I thought about how one of the perks of online dating is not having to be coy. If you like kink, then under interests, write “kink.” No one is forcing you to abide by some mysterious animal code, communicating desire through a menagerie of symbols. (“A peacock indicates self-involvement. An albatross means you like to travel. A marine iguana means you’re into vegan seafood.”) This isn’t Renaissance portraiture, in which everything means something. I was about as ready to believe these tabby-cat bachelors liked a little kink as I was to believe that they were devout admirers of British Romantic poet William Blake. Nope.
“All right, fine,” she said. “But they are raising awareness for tigers.”
“I think the world is plenty aware of the existence of tigers,” I countered.
I certainly didn’t think these men — and we both agreed that they were largely men — were doing anything important for nature or the earth. Nor, for that matter, did they seem to especially like animals all that much. I mean, sure, if you’re a veterinarian or a zookeeper, or you write, “This is my pet tiger, Roscoe,” then I’ll buy it. But I would bet that for most Bay Area singles tigers feature about as importantly in their lives as, say, red potatoes.
All arguments on the ethics of exotic-animal selfies aside (for those who wish to feel either ashamed or secure in their choices on the matter, click here and here), saying a tiger selfie “raises awareness” for the plight of big cats rings false to me. It’s laying a dross of moral rectitude over a vanity statement. It’s hokum. Bupkis. Bullshit. You might as well say that an ad for a McDonald’s cheeseburger raises awareness for the conservation of the American buffalo.
To me, the tiger pics meant something else entirely — chiefly, the same generalized message as all profile-pic clichés, including those of someone inside the Forbidden City, holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa or looking down from the heights on Machu Picchu. They say, “I’m adventurous and daring,” but in rather conventional ways.
To their individual lives, the tiger was probably not that important, but to their self-image, it was critical. To pose with something is to express an alliance, to identify oneself with the most admirable qualities of the secondary subject. With strength, cunning, charisma, virility, sophistication and sexiness. And, crucially for the tiger selfies, with control. There is good reason why the tiger never stands (my guess: heavy sedatives).
These men pose for the same reason, and in much the same position, as a victorious Elizabeth I stands in the Armada Portrait, her hand at rest upon the globe, the distracted Spanish fleet in disarray behind her. (Or, for example, a more contemporary queen in a position of power.) They pose the way they see themselves, as calm amid chaos — as the victor, the beast tamer, the benevolent conqueror. Their gesture is one of casual dominance that simply says, “I rule.”
Profile pics are the introduction to another’s identity, and what is a selfie but a prepared declaration of one’s own awesomeness? But the irony of the tiger selfie is that tigers are just too damn interesting. Pose with a tiger, and you end up looking boring by comparison. You become wallpaper. Your own banal frumpiness heightens the other’s magnificence. You are the ugly bridesmaid — forgettable, in other words.
Sweet you might be, perhaps even adventurous and kinky and with all the qualities of glamour — tigers on a gold leash and all that — but always a step away from the star and never quite as intriguing. And that’s just because … well, you’re not a tiger.
