I hope my profile didn’t make it on ‘Tinder Live’

Oct. 27, “Tinder Live”by Lane Moore, a Brooklynite and long term single person, came to town. The show consists of her scrolling through Tinder while asking the audience to decide if she should troll various people she finds. The Pantages Theater stage in Tacoma hosted Moore and her guests, Najamoniq Todd and Del Brown of Mirrorgloss, a fabulous local electro pop duo. Together, the three commanded the stage and lead a fun and engaging show.

The audience participation in this show makes it stand out from similar contemporary lamentations on dating and modern love as a whole. By asking the audience if she should troll a man who posts “I hate religion (including your horoscope),” she builds a rapport with the members who have seen similar dramatic nonsense in their search for love.

Another jarring element is that, given that the show revolves around Moore being on Tinder, well, live, the people she razzes tend to be in town. At the beginning of the show she asked that if anyone sees themselves or someone they know on screen, to tell her so they can choose to defend or condemn their acquaintance. Assuming an audience member sees a person they know, and they choose to defend, Moore is gentle with that person, but if they condemn, Moore uses audience supplied intel to tease mercilessly. All in raunchy taste.

Also of note in Moore’s shows is the usage of performative hyperfemininity. Adopting a valley girl inflection in her messages and utilizing Lisa Frank title cards, Moore, whether intentionally or not, highlights the contrast between cultural femininity and online social mores. This affected girlishness is intended to be obnoxious, in a playful sort of way.

Though no show is without fault, the biggest one in “Tinder Live” is that Moore seems to not notice, or perhaps elects to ignore, obvious jokes in the profiles she roasts. Some of the men she jokes about are, as she puts it when referring to people she elects not to tease, “just people with faces, living in the world.” However, their dumb profile jokes are just icebreakers.

All in all, this show left the audience in stitches. Moore, Todd and Brown kept the flow in check and provided something halfway adjacent to catharsis for all the people just looking for love in online places.