Or should we say, “Baethoven”…
This was just one of the countless responses we received after putting classical composer Ludwig Van Beethoven on the social dating platform, Tinder.
You might be thinking, why should Beethoven — a composer who has been dead for nearly 190 years — be on Tinder? Naturally, it’s not what you think…
At first, we tried this out as a comical social experiment, wondering if people would (1) recognize Beethoven, and (2) swipe right for him.
We outfitted Beethoven with a Tinder profile, complete with photos of him seductively sitting at the piano, and a few other portraits. And then, to keep things interesting, we added the profile description “Keeping things ‘Romantic’ since 1770”.
On the first day alone, Beethoven earned himself over 100 matches on the platform, and over the past two weeks has accumulated 300+ profile matches. One of our myths was busted; people really did swipe right for Beethoven.
What’s even more remarkable is the messages we received after people swiped. Here’s just a sampling:
“After you left me with the 9th symphony, I was just so devastated. I just didn’t know what to do anymore.”
“You should come over for an Eroica time, *wink*.”
“How’s Vienna this time of year?!”
“Oh hey, Baethoven!”
“Lol do you require frequency in sign language?”
“op. 81a sonata was killer *thumbs up*.”
“I love your 9th Symphony, the Chorale… and the Eroica!”
“OMG Ludwig, all I want is just a glass of wine and a violin solo…!”
What’s telling here isn’t just the sheer number of people that are swiping right or sending Beethoven messages via Tinder, but how well educated some of these responses are. The comments showed that people know Beethoven is from Vienna, that he went deaf near the end of his career, and even what music he wrote. And, of course, there were a fair share of puns…
So we took our experiment one step further, and created a friend for Beethoven, none other than composer Franz Schubert.
Beethoven and Schubert enjoyed a grand time together on Tinder Social. We matched them up for Karaoke Nights, Concert Evenings, and even a “boys night out”.
The Tinder Social responses were similarly comical (“Oh Lordy! We hit the jackpot… dips on the ol’ Ludwig Van.”), yet still show a keen awareness of both Beethoven and Schubert, and the incredible legacy of their music.
If you read my blog regularly, you know about my recurring theme: classical music is far from dead, and future generations of listeners need to be reached in more creative and innovative ways. Nonetheless, even I was delightfully surprised at the response to Beethoven’s presence on Tinder, and I encourage (and challenge) classical music presenters to think even further outside of the traditional marketing box. Your unreached audience is out there, and as we saw in this unusual experiment, they can show up in some very unlikely places.
In the meantime, if you run into Beethoven or Schubert on Tinder, be sure to swipe right and say hello!