Some of these are definitely up to your own personal preference.

Plenty of MAGA chicks on Tinder in my area that, themselves, have pics of their guns, dead animals and trucks. I'm sure they'd love all the country bros that do the same.

But then again, I don't think anyone on Lemmy wants to attract those people.

NO: Guns, dead animals, motorcycles, trucks or other vehicles you wish to show off

Dang it so no train pics I take it?

No pics that include other women, no matter who they are. I’d try to leave male friends out as well.

See I've heard the opposite advise. A non-cover photo of you with some friends including non-male friends if you have any indicates you're not a loner and might have some idea of how to talk to other humans

Huh. Well. I guess I'm doing everything right then.

Maybe the photos need a lot of work. That will be challenging.

damn thats a lot of effort lol

will stick with never using dating apps ever again in my life, already settled on dying alone in a cabin with a dog because the app life juice is not worth the squeeze

@peoplebeproblems@midwest.social

Awesome list. Big fan of no negativity or being demanding or needy. Also a big fan of using dgaf humor in your bio. Also a big, big fan of asking girls out quick.

A few things I disagree on:

• Motorcycles are hot. If you ride, get a cool pic of yourself riding. Like, a pic of you cornering on the track or blasting up a dirt hill (depending on bike type). But yes, don't just take a pic of your bike like owning a bike is your whole personality.
• Imo, pics with other people in them are great. I don't like far-away group shots, since it is hard to pick you out unless you are obnoxiously front and center. But a pic of you with one or two friends is a good pic for showing your social circle and how you look socially. After all, having friends is a green flag.
• If you are specifically seeking casual sex or non-monogamy, having other women in your profile can also be a good thing. Sure, a woman seeking a monogamous relationship may be turned off - but on the other hand, having female friends is a green flag for not being a creep. And if a girl wants to fuck, she wants to fuck a guy who fucks, since he's more likely to fuck her good.

But I feel like the big thing I disagree with in your comment is the thing that I find I disagree with in most men's dating advice I find in left-leaning spaces. It's all "don't", "don't", "don't", and "no", "no", "no". And all of the things you are warning against are good warnings - but the overall impression is one of disempowerment - here is a bunch of things not to do. Okay, well what should you do? And the answer (as you noted) is to get good pictures.

And I feel like the real thing I want to add to your conment is emphasis.

GET GOOD PICTURES.

Pics are 97% of how you succeed on dating apps. Bio is 3%. Your bio, at best, is probably neutral (though as you noted, it is a great way to shoot yourself in the foot). Picspicspicspicspics!!!!

In order to get good pics, first of all, be good looking. You don't have to be a Calvin Klein model, but be the best looking version of you that you can be. Hit the gym, eat vegetables, get enough sleep, get a good haircut, buy some stylish clothes, take care of your skin, and express who you are and who you want to become in the way you present yourself.

At this point in my rant, I feel like I need to take a moment to address the "just be yourself" crowd, who may come in and say that changing the way you dress or your diet in order to attract women is somehow fake or inauthentic. And my response is that "being yourself" is shit advice if you currently aren't getting any matches. Don't be yourself - become the person you want to become. Because the person you want to become is not only literally what you want, but they are also almost certainly a dashing fucking bastard. And beyond that - "be yourself?" Okay, fine, I will be myself - and myself wants to match with some hotties! Why is that an illegitimate desire? Why is everything else "who I really am", while my desire for emotional and physical companionship is somehow inauthentic? Seriously, this attitude is just thinly veiled sexual puritanism. Fuck that nonsense!

Another side note: yes, you should lose weight and hit the gym or something. Around this time, someone claiming to be female will typically chime in with some comment about how "guys with big muscles are gross" - which is just such an obvious attempt at gaslighting. Like, go ask Arnold if he ever had any trouble with the ladies. Yes, some women dislike big muscles. Yes, if you keep getting huge (like, taking steroids huge), then you will eventually hit a point where fewer women like you than when you were smaller. Yes, long before you get to that point, you will find diminishing returns to hitting the gym more versus working on literally any other aspect of your life. And yes, women have diverse preferences on body type - some like bodybuilders, some like swimmers, some like ultrarunners, and some like big burly guys with potbellies. But it is a very rare woman who looks at an overweight, pear-shaped gamer body and says "ugh, hawt". If you exercise regularly and eat vegetables at nearly every meal already, then good job, we are all very proud of you. But if you don't, you need to get started on that shit yesterday. Humans are animals, and animals want to mate with other animals that are physically healthy, so be healthy

/rant

Anyway, go spend 2 months buying clothes and getting a haircut and improving your sleep hygiene and starting a (reasonable and sustainable) diet and exercise routine. Then go out and start getting some pictures.

Yes, you will almost certainly have to go out with the explicit intention of getting pictures for dating apps. Most attractive women have been practicing looking good in photos since they were 11. They've been practicing how to put on makeup so it hides their flaws in shots. They've been figuring out how to angle their heads and adjust their jaws to hide their double chin. They've been working on getting the framing just right so you can see enough cleavage to be enticing, but not so much that it's slutty. Every time they go out to a bar, or on a hike, or to a party, or to a pottery class, they ask their friend to get a photo of themselves looking cute, doing the thing. Meanwhile, as a guy, you have not been doing that, so your best photo is a slightly blurry shot of you in a bar where your smile didn't look awkward for the first time in your life. Why do so many guys have fish pics on dating apps? My theory is that it is because these are the only pictures they have of themselves. So don't be a fish pic guy! Grab a bro (or a tripod) and go out and shoot some photos of yourself. Ideally, use a good dslr camera so you can control the f-stop and get a good bokeh - but high-end smartphone cameras and post-hoc photo editing can get mostly the same effect these days.

Your goals with these photos is:

1. Look good. Literally, if you do nothing but get a bunch of shots of you doing fuck all in different poses, locations, and outfits while looking handsome, you will be head and shoulders above most guys. Body language, facial expression, lighting, and composition all matter. Make your photos look good!! (Important side note - make sure you have at least one clear photo of your face, and one clear photo of your body).
2. Be interesting. The school photo style shot can be "good enough", but it is ultimately boring and looks fake. The easiest way to make a photo interesting is to be doing something where it looks like a candid shot. This could be as simple as just walking down the street or drinking a cup of coffee. But your pictures are more interesting if you are doing something that is (get this!) interesting! So shots of you doing cool shit are what we want - pics of you doing a sport or hobby, pics of you doing a cool job, pics of you holding a cute dog, pics of you travelling to a cool place.
3. Tell a story. Since bio does basically fuckall, we want to tell the story of who you are through your photos. What makes you awesome? What will dating you look like? What are your attractive features? Get some shots of yourself looking focused and serious, and some shots where you look fun and playful. Show off your normal, chill side, your exuberant side, your sexy side, your stoic side. Use your photos to paint a picture of who you are, what you want, and what you can bring to the table.

Once you have done all that, if you still aren't getting matches, or aren't satisfied with the quantity or quality of the matches you're getting, there are a few things to do.

1. Remember: location, location, location. The smaller the population around you, the faster your well of potential matches runs dry. If you live in a smaller town or city, there comes a point where you are better off just leaving the house and meeting girls the old fashioned way. If you are really serious - move.
2. Iterate. Improve fitness and style, and then take even more pics, replacing one pic at a time in your profile with a more attractive one.
3. Iterate more. Improve your lifestyle. Try new hobbies. Expand your horizons. Then get pics of you doing these new, even cooler things.
4. Make yourself real. The problem is that catfishing is a problem on dating apps, so many women are nervous to match with a guy who looks like he might be faking it - and with your awesome profile, you might look "too good to be true". So build up your IG by posting regularly, and link your IG to your profile. Then a girl who is interested in you can see that you are actually a cool guy who does cool things regularly and has a thriving social life with lots of friends in his pics and liking his posts. This is pretty easy if you just do one cool thing per month and then post some pics from that thing. After a year, you'll have a sufficiently full IG to link to the apps, and it'll only get better from there.

Of course, at this point it is easier to actually be a cool guy who does cool things with friends all the time, at which point the women have won - they have successfully seduced you into having a life worth living instead of being a neckbeard who never leaves the house. Damn feminazis, ruining our awesome male lives /s