Swiped: A Sharp Take on Dating Apps, Techbros, and Starting Over

More than just a start up story, Swiped is also about what it means to be the only woman in the room, and how, at times, we as women don’t always show up for each other the way we should.

Recently I attended a screening and Q&A with the writer and director of Swiped (2025) at a Women in Film & TV event. The film resonated with so many women in that audience, including myself. It is a bold, timely look at modern dating culture, equal parts satire and social critique, wrapped in a refreshingly female-led narrative that had the audience laughing, wincing, and nodding along in knowing recognition.

Swiped, written and directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, dives into the swipe-right world of dating apps — a realm many singles have ventured into (around 5 million of us in the UK alone, according to Ofcom.) The story centers on Whitney Wolfe Herd (played by Lily James), Cofounder of Tinder and Founder of Bumble, who initially joins a startup as a marketing director to see what they can build. Tinder may have sparked the dating app revolution, but Bumble was born to flip the script — giving women the power to make the first move (in a landscape flooded with unsolicited explicit content, this matters).

Instead of the film centring another male “tech bro” in a hoodie pitching the next big app, Swiped follows a woman who breaks out on her own. It doesn’t shy away from exposing the toxic techbro culture that dominated Silicon Valley in the 2010s, or the ways dating apps have gamified romance and shaped how we connect.

Lily James in Swiped (2025)

More than just a start up story, Swiped is also about what it means to be the only woman in the room, and how, at times, we as women don’t always show up for each other the way we should. It also navigates casual sexism, fighting to be heard, and trying to claim a seat at the table in a world that wasn’t built with you in mind.

Whitney Wolfe Herd, was the driving force behind many of the features that made these apps household names. After launching Tinder, and helping it explode, Whitney famously left Tinder, suing the company for sexual harassment and toxic workplace culture. What followed, largely outside the public eye due to a strict None Disclosure Agreement, (the details of which were leaked) after successfully suing Tinder for $1million (a drop in the ocean for them at the time) she reportedly had a breakdown, and had a very public character assassination campaign. Whitney was not part of the film, and we will never know her full story whilst she is under this NDA. While the film is based on news reports, and is of course partly fiction. I can’t help but wonder what she thinks of seeing her story being told on screen, and I hope it would be powerful, and a way for her to reclaim her legacy. After all she is the youngest female self made billionaire in 2021, when she took Bumble public at aged 31.

For those of us dating in the 2020s, Swiped hits close to home. It’s not just about bad dates (though there are plenty of hilarious stories, go see the page Beam Me Up Soft Boi on Instagram); it’s about the emotional labor of dating, the identity crisis of being reduced to a profile, and the vulnerability of putting yourself out there again, especially after taking a break. And how we now have this bizarre contradiction of feeling simultaneously more connected and more disposable than ever. The film captures the beginnings of creating these apps, tapping into at the time an unused dating app market (Millennials), as we were meeting people in person back before these apps existed.

As someone who’s recently started dating again, I found Swiped unexpectedly comforting. It reminded me that putting yourself out there, even when it can feel awkward or exhausting, is brave.

We need more female led stories like this on screen, not just because they reflect real experiences, but because they challenge the systems that shape those experiences. Female-led narratives are crucial, not just in front of the camera but also behind it. Swiped was made by a largely female team who understand clearly the world they’re portraying, and it shows. The humour is sharp, the insights are on point, and the message is clear: stand up for your values, in all aspects of your life, but especially when it comes to your career and in love.