The people exactly who reappear after numerous remaining swipes became contemporary urban legends.
Alex was 27 years old. The guy stays in or have accessibility property with a huge kitchen area and granite counters. I have come across his face a large number of circumstances, usually with the exact same expression—stoic, content material, smirking. Definitely just like compared to the Mona Lisa, plus horn-rimmed glasses. The majority of period, his Tinder profile provides six or seven images, along with every single one, he reclines against the same immaculate home counter with one knee crossed lightly on the some other. His create was identical; the perspective for the picture is actually identical; the coif of his locks are the same. Just his costumes changes: blue fit, 
black colored suit, purple flannel. Flower blazer, navy V-neck, double-breasted parka. Face and the body frozen, he swaps garments like a paper doll. He could be Alex, he is 27, he is in his cooking area, they are in an enjoyable shirt. He or she is Alex, he is 27, he could be in the kitchen, he could be in a fantastic clothing.
I’ve usually swiped leftover (for “no”) on his profile—no crime, Alex—which should presumably tell Tinder’s algorithm that i might in contrast to observe your once more. But we nonetheless discover Alex on Tinder at least once per month. The most up-to-date time I saw your, we read their profile for a few minutes and got while I seen one indication of lifestyle: a cookie container formed like a French bulldog appearing following vanishing from behind Alex’s best shoulder.
I am not saying the only one. While I asked on Twitter whether other individuals have seen your, dozens stated yes. One lady replied, “I reside in BOSTON and then have nevertheless seen this man on visits to [nyc].” And seemingly, Alex is certainly not an isolated circumstances. Similar mythological figures have popped up in regional dating-app ecosystems nationwide, respawning every time they’re swiped out.
On Reddit, people frequently grumble in regards to the robot accounts on Tinder which feature super-beautiful female and turn into “follower frauds” or adverts for mature webcam providers. But males like Alex aren’t bots. These are genuine men and women, gaming the device, becoming—whether they are aware they or not—key numbers into the mythology regarding urban centers’ electronic customs. Like internet, these include confounding and scary and a bit enchanting. Like mayors and well-known bodega kitties, they are both hyper-local and larger than existence.
In January, Alex’s Tinder popularity moved off-platform, due to the New York–based comedian way Moore.
Moore hosts a month-to-month entertaining level program also known as Tinder alive, when a gathering support this lady see times by voting on whom she swipes right on. During final month’s show, Alex’s visibility emerged, as well as minimum several anyone stated they’d seen your prior to. All of them acknowledged the counter tops and, however, the posture. Moore informed me the show is actually funny because utilizing dating applications is “lonely and complicated,” but making use of them together was a bonding experience. Alex, in a way, shown the style. (Moore matched up with him, but once she tried to ask him about his kitchen, he gave just terse replies, therefore, the tv series must move on.)
When I at long last talked with Alex Hammerli, 27, it wasn’t on Tinder. It actually was through Facebook Messenger, after a part of a Facebook people work by The Ringer delivered myself a screenshot of Hammerli bragging that their Tinder profile was going to end up on a billboard in occasions Square.
In 2014, Hammerli said, the guy noticed a person on Tumblr posing in a penthouse that forgotten core Park—over and over, exactly the same posture, altering merely their clothes. The guy preferred the idea, and going taking photographs and posting all of them on Instagram, in order to conserve their “amazing wardrobe” for posterity. The guy published them on Tinder for the first time in early 2017, largely because those happened to be the photographs he’d of themselves. They’ve worked for your, the guy said. “A significant women are just like, ‘I swiped for cooking area.’ Most are like, ‘When may I come more and start to become put on that table?’”
Hammerli comes up in Tinder swipers’ feeds normally while he do because the guy deletes the app and reinstalls it every a couple of weeks or so (except while in the getaways, because tourists tend to be “awful to connect with”). Though their Tinder biography states that he lives in ny, their apartment is really in Jersey City—which describes the kitchen—and their neighbor will be the professional photographer behind every shot.