Performeter

Performeter is a Chrome extension that analyzes dating profiles on Tinder and uses ___ to rate how “performative” someone is based off trendiness, personality, aesthetic, and buzzwords.

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Inspiration

Picture this: a majestic 6'3" Chinese boy, dripped out in jorts and a button-up shirt, carrying a Harvard tote bag, wired headphones in, walking around campus while reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Oh shoot — sorry, I was describing myself.

Anyways... inspired by "starter pack" memes that fuel internet culture and flood our Instagram feeds, we built Performeter to answer the question: how performative is this person, really? The result is a playful — but surprisingly insightful — tool that makes the Tinder experience more self-aware (and fun).

What it does

Performeter is a Chrome Extension that:

  • Automatically parses data from Tinder profile bios and (optionally) detects objects and fashion in profile images
  • Uses Gemini to understand what a "performative male" is and what traits constitute being "performative"
  • Produces four category scores:
    • Trendy — references to cultural objects like matcha, tote bags, film cameras
    • Personality — curated tagline-style bios
    • Aesthetic — level of profile curation and photo staging
    • Buzzwords — meme energy, TikTok slang, and internet culture density
  • Displays an overall score and a clean, gamified UI overlay with a category breakdown

How we built it

  • Chrome Extension (Manifest V3) for injecting scripts and rendering a sidebar overlay
  • Content Script scrapes bio text and profile info
  • Background Script calls the Gemini/Claude API with a structured prompt and rubric
  • Frontend UI built with HTML/CSS and injected dynamically into the Tinder DOM
  • Design prototyped in Figma, refined collaboratively, then implemented in Cursor
  • Testing with dummy JSON responses before connecting to live AI models

Challenges we ran into

  • DOM scraping on Tinder/Hinge was difficult due to dynamically loaded, obfuscated elements
  • Getting AI to produce valid JSON consistently — solved with careful prompt engineering
  • Balancing speed (API latency) with UI smoothness to avoid a janky user experience
  • Styling an overlay that works across different screen sizes and dark/light modes

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Fully working Chrome extension built in less than 5 hours (shortest hackathon ever — wth!)
  • Clean, responsive UI that matches the meme energy of the project (yes, we used Comic Sans — unironically)
  • Successfully integrated AI that returns consistent structured output
  • Created a playful experience that is fun to demo live and works reliably

What we learned

  • How to structure Chrome extensions using Manifest V3
  • Prompt engineering for consistent, structured AI outputs
  • Rapid design-to-code iteration using Figma MCP + Cursor

What's next for Performeter

  • Add computer vision to detect a wider range of visual performative cues (matcha cups, film cameras, etc.)
  • Expand support to Bumble, OkCupid, and other dating platforms (?)
  • Allow user customization (choose which categories matter most — maybe even detect performative sub-genres?)

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