This study seeks to discover how Young Indonesian Tinder Users make meaning of the concept of dating in using an online dating app, Tinder. Furthermore, this study also aims to find out how these Tinder users negotiate their concept of dating with the existence of sexual Tinder hookup values as a process of transnationalism towards American popular culture. The method used in this research is participant observation, by applying the digital ethnographic research concept.
This research focuses on the online dating culture that is highly related to the influence of global flow that brings American culture to other nations which caused Americanization to happen. Historically, hookup culture is often related to American popular culture that evokes in the 1960s – 1970s among the college student and becomes more accepted in wide Western society since then. Tinder is invented and first grow in America with the construction of American cultural, social, economic, and political entanglement that may reign the native cultural embodiment of the consumers. Hookup norms and values are later introduced to the global culture as a user’s guide in Tinder. However, the adaptation of American cultural influence implied the individual preferred appealing cultural experiences. The shifting gender norms and expectations surround online dating applications continue to grow as the sexual script may evolve from time to time. In advance, this issue of American hookup culture placed in online dating has become more prevalent to wide discussion especially in the scope of the online dating industry.
Keywords: New Media, Online Dating, Americanization, Dating Concept, Tinder
