Adapted from a story by Jenna Birch for The Washington Post.
A journalism major, Tweten never planned to be a “Feminist Tinder-Creep-Busting Web Vigilante,” as she was originally hailed in 2014. Now, she’s back to her writing roots, exploring online dating and lending her best wisdom in a new "Bye Felipe” book, which is an ode to understanding and taking it all in stride.
Tweten recently shared why she originally started Bye Felipe, how she got the idea for a book and how online-daters can maintain a positive attitude through all the ups and downs.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jenna Birch: Where did you originally get the idea for Bye Felipe?
Alexandra Tweten: It was October 2014, and I was in a Facebook group for women in L.A. One woman posted a screenshot of a message she had received on OkCupid. She didn’t respond, and 12 hours later, she’d gotten a second message, [an insulting expletive].
I thought it was funny, and I’d gotten messages that felt similar before. There was one guy who’d messaged me for months and months, over and over, on OkCupid. When I finally turned him down, he said, “Why would you even respond?” You learn that you can’t not respond; they freak out. But if you do respond, they also yell at you. You can’t win.
So, we had an inside joke in the Facebook group that when something like that happens, we’d say, “Bye Felipe” — which is a play on “Bye, Felicia.” I started the Instagram as a joke just for me and my friends to make fun of these guys. Two weeks later, Olga Khazan at the Atlantic found it and asked to interview me. After her article came out, it blew up from there.
Birch: Tell me about some of your personal online-dating horror stories. How did it compare to other women’s?
Tweten: When I first started online dating, I received a handful of hostile messages. And the first thing I thought was, Is he a stalker? Is he going to come after me? You just don’t know. It can be scary putting yourself out there on the Internet. I got a lot of thank you messages from women who don’t feel so alone in that experience now. I felt the same way when I saw the messages that other women were receiving.
Birch: Do you think “toxic masculinity” plays into the Bye Felipe phenomenon?
Tweten: Yes. It’s definitely related. But we probably need a nicer name for it. Men hear the phrase “toxic masculinity” and think, “Wait, we’re not allowed to be men anymore?” That’s not what we’re saying when we talk about toxic masculinity. It’s really about redefining the social norms of what it means to be traditionally masculine.
Currently, “real men” aren’t generally allowed to step outside of a very rigid set of gender roles that basically say they should be strong, dominant and unemotional. Anger, violence and aggression are some of the only approved emotions men are allowed to have. They can’t be sensitive, sad or show any softer emotions. We expect men to be sexually aggressive, too, and this is a big reason that women experience so many hostile messages online. It’s ingrained in our society.
At the end of the day, a lot of the guys perpetuating these behaviors just have personal issues, too. Online dating is hard for everyone; however, the stakes are just a lot higher for women. Women experience it differently. It’s often a safety issue.
Birch: Have you ever found success in online dating, personally?
Tweten: Yes, I’ve met a lot of really great guys online dating; I was in a relationship with someone I met on OkCupid for 2½ years. I’ve met a lot of wonderful guys who turned out to be friends. I also have lots of couple friends who met online and are now married or engaged.
The point of Bye Felipe has never been to encourage women not to do online dating. The real message is that our society and culture are really broken; the evidence is that we have all these examples of men acting completely entitled, objectifying women and becoming aggressive. It’s not only in online dating, it’s everywhere: on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, gaming apps, message boards — it even happens in real life on the street or in the bar.
I think that online dating can absolutely be successful. We spend so much of our time online, so why shouldn’t we use it for dating? The fact that this behavior is coming up so often [online] is because it’s so easy to document.
Birch: Let’s talk about your book. How did you approach creating a book from an Instagram account?
Tweten: I got the idea for the book pretty shortly after the Instagram took off. It took me two years to finish the proposal, and then another year to write and publish it. Whenever I got submissions, I’d put them in folders in my inbox: mansplainers, fat-shamers, “nice guys” and so on. And then I analyzed them to see if they had anything in common to figure out what the best ways of combating them would be.
I wanted to create a handbook for how to handle any situation when you’re online dating as a woman. It ended up being an anthology of the best — or worst, I guess — Bye Felipe submissions, a guide to the best ways to respond to trolls, a collection of funny stories from my own dating experiences and then partly dating advice.
I also tried to answer the question “Why do guys do that?” It’s basically the book I wish I would have had when I first started dating, especially online.
Birch: What did you want your big takeaway for women to be when they finished reading?
Tweten: Don’t take online dating too seriously. Have fun, and let it go. You’re probably going to meet a bunch of jerks out there, but have a sense of humor about it. Make fun of them.
The number one key to not letting harassment get to you is having self-confidence — which is really the most radical act of resistance.
