Visual Self-Presentation in Online Dating: Behavioral Styles and Patterns across Culture, Gender, and Sexualities

The actions, motivations, and justifications of users engaging in picture-based online dating are common research subjects across fields such as communication studies, psychology, and sociology. Most current studies focus on analyzing user reception and exploring the reasons behind participation. However, the specific ways in which users present themselves visually in picture-based online dating, and how these modes of self-presentation are culturally rooted, are largely overlooked. This study employs computational methods, including dimensionality reduction and image clustering, alongside documentary picture interpretation. An analysis was conducted on 13,000 profiles comprising 73,208 online dating pictures from male, female, heterosexual, and homosexual users across 13 locations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The findings identify 11 modes of self-presentation, which appear in 8 distinct behavioral patterns. The results show that culture is the major determinant of visual self-representation in picture-based online dating, taking precedence over gender and sexuality. Additionally, the findings indicate that similar modes of visual self-presentation align with cultural patterns identified in value-based studies. These insights highlight the significant influence of cultural context on visual self-presentation in digital domains and emphasize that these spheres do not produce self-contained modes of self-presentation.