Playing Cupid during Covid: Tinder reveals Britain’s top chat-up lines of the year

Locked-down singletons have “adapted and got creative” in their bid to find love during the Covid pandemic - and their chat-up lines and topics have branched off in some unexpected directions too, according to Tinder.

The online dating giant’s newly published Year in Swipe report reveals double-digit increases in use of the app’s messaging and swipe features from the end of February, “with more daters than ever relying on meeting people virtually”, says the Daily Mail.

By “looking at a year’s worth of Tinder profiles”, the company has identified new trends including “coronavirus-themed pick-up lines, bragging about success on TikTok, and showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement”, the newspaper adds.

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The most-mentioned celebrities in flirty conversations between Tinder users in the UK were Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Tiger King stars Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, and perhaps rather more surprisingly, Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings.

Hot topics of discussion included the NHS and, less surprisingly, Eat Out to Help Out. Mentions of Tiktok have also increased eight-fold on Tinder since the start of the year, with some singletons showing off their dance moves in their own videos, or trying to attract potential mates by bragging that they’re “TikTok famous”.

And BLM mentions in Tinder users’ biographies increased by 55 times from last year, overtaking use of the term “hook-up”.

Amid the furore surrounding the US presidential election, mentions of the word “vote” has doubled in 2020 - “because you know what’s sexier than voting? Nothing,” says the Tinder report.

Inevitably, the coronavirus pandemic has also dominated the flirty virtual chat.

Use of the emjoi wearing a face mask spiked, along with the shrugging emoji, the rainbow emoji and the BLM fist in the air emoji.

An “entire new breed of chat-up lines took the app by storm in March” too, as references to “quarantine and chill” increased rapidly, says the Mail.

But among the most memorable chat-up lines of 2020 has to be “it’s a long drive to Barnard Castle, who’s Cumming with me?” - a reference to the former Downing Street aide’s infamous lockdown trip.