A Joel D. Bradley Production
The Disposable Heart Podcast
Real profiles. Fictional voices. Very real questions.
What is all this swiping actually doing to us?
The Disposable Heart Podcast explores the people behind modern dating profiles and the strange new culture created by dating apps, algorithms, endless options, curated identities, and disposable connections.
Inspired by real dating profiles and real experiences—but presented through fictionalized and composite voices—the show looks beyond the profile pictures and asks what modern dating is doing to the way we see one another.
Hosted by author Joel D. Bradley, creator of Swipe Wright.
About the show
Behind the Swipe
Online dating gives us more choices than any generation in history.
But has having more choices made it easier to connect—or easier to discard one another?
Each episode of The Disposable Heart Podcast takes an idea inspired by modern dating profiles and lets everyday men and women tell their side of the story.
No dating coaches.
No influencers promising seven steps to finding your soulmate.
Just people trying to make a connection in a world where everyone appears to have another option waiting one swipe away.
Listen
New episodes as they arrive. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.
Episode 01
The Depot of Broken Toys
Two people, one dating app, two completely different experiences. Endless choice on one side, invisibility on the other.
ListenEpisode 02
Behind the Profile
What the photos, prompts, and carefully chosen details are really saying — and what they leave out.
ListenEpisode 03
Baggage — Part 1
Everyone carries something. The first half of a conversation about the histories we bring to a first date.
ListenEpisode 03
Baggage — Part 2
The story continues: what happens when the past stops being a footnote and starts setting the terms.
Listen
The novel
Where It Started
The Disposable Heart Podcast grew out of the questions behind Joel D. Bradley's novel Swipe Wright: Dating in the Age of the Disposable Heart.
The novel uses satire to explore a dating culture increasingly shaped by apps, algorithms, curated identities, endless options, and the belief that somebody better may always be one swipe away.
Discover Swipe Wright
Your host
Joel D. Bradley
Joel D. Bradley is an author, former Baltimore Orioles international scout, entrepreneur, and publisher whose work explores the intersection of technology and human behavior.
His books include Swipe Wright, Death By Data, and The 7-Player Baseball Revolution. Through The Disposable Heart Podcast, Bradley turns his attention to modern relationships and asks the same question that runs through much of his work:
When technology promises to make life better, what happens to the human experience along the way?