We all know about the men who fail at dating apps. The men we sometimes call incels. The men whose Hinge acts like it’s stuck in airplane mode. The men whose only experience of eye contact with a woman happens on TikTok. The men with no likes. The men who cope and seethe online. But what about the chads?
A chad is the opposite of an incel. He’s an alpha male whose exceptional good looks make picking a date feel like flicking through Top Trumps. Chad’s modern roots as a meme lie in the increasing body of research and surveys on dating apps, which indicate that in any given pool of men, women tend to court the most desirable – and ignore the rest. This top tier of men are understood to dominate on apps, accrue the most likes, get all the dates, and presumably have financial security, enviable jobs, a strong jaw, and a hairline that holds formation like the Spartan army.
