ABSTRACT
Since their appearance, the social networking services (SNS) can, arguably, be considered as the main outlets for the exposition and portrayal of digital faces. The extension of the (digital) face space has unquestionably been accelerated by the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic that has radically redesigned the public spaces of social interactions and the private sphere of affectivity at a global level. While social media such as Facebook and Instagram have been widely investigated in their remediation of physical interactions and as enablers of new aesthetic regimes, dating sites and applications have not received the same attention. In order to fill this lack, this chapter intends to explore the facial space produced by the dating sites as a space that facilitates the reimagining and reenactment of intimate face-to-face interactions.
The chapter does not intend to scrutinize a specific dating app or site. Rather, it attempts to understand online intimacy as a discourse crafted within the polyphonic landscape of different dating sites and platforms and frames it in a wider facialization of the experience operated by the most popular service-based platforms and marketplaces.
