We hate to break it to you Tinder (and Bumble, and Hinge, and Grindr…), but it looks like you’re next on Gen Z’s hit list.
Sure, you might have dominated the online dating scene for the past decade and established the default way for people to date and find love.
But with more millennials settling down and Gen Zs becoming the dominant demographic in the online dating world, they’re starting to put their own stamp on how they want to be courted.
Niki Patton, a Gen Z from the US who’s amassed a following of 1.7 million on TikTok with her advice-focused videos on dating culture, highlighted one notable difference between how millennials and Gen Zs use dating apps.
“I think Gen Z is completely changing it because we don’t take things seriously,” she said.
Another is Gen Z’s penchant for social media, with a handful of innovative new dating apps tapping into popular social media features in an effort to court Gen Zs.
So what does the next generation of online dating apps look like?
Snack
Snack is a video-first dating app that markets itself as ‘TikTok meets Tinder’.
There’s no ‘bio’, profile picture or basic information on display (like your job, education level, political leanings or height) – just your name, age, location, a few hashtagged interests and your videos.
Instead of stale selfies, users upload videos that capture their personalities and interests – like ‘show me how tall you are by comparing yourself to another object in your room’.
Instead of swiping left or right, users ‘like’ content that catches their eye (and hearts).
Snack’s algorithm then gets to work understanding the user’s interests and facilitating more compatible matches.
Another selling point for Gen Z daters burned out after years of swiping (especially in the throes of pandemic lockdowns) is Snack’s efforts to tackle ghosting.
“If you continually ghost, we’re not going to show you as frequently,” Snack CEO Kim Kaplan told Mashable.
“Hopefully, that changes the behavior and gets people to be more open and honest with the other party about what’s going on.”
No ghosting?! Sign us up!
Schmooze
Schmooze, another dating app courting Gen Zs, uses a ‘humour algorithm’ that matches people based on their taste in memes.
Yep. Instead of swiping people, users swipe memes, with the Schmooze algorithm working to find matches users can laugh with.
“Dating apps today are very skewed – they create a massive demand for “objectively beautiful and handsome” people, leaving others out,” CEO Vidya Madhavan told Nasdaq.com
“While some dating apps try to combat this by emphasizing “responses to personal prompts”, that only ends up rewarding the “wittiest” and most “well-rehearsed” users.
“Schmooze helps the remaining 98% of us find a date to laugh with.”
The app – which is backed by the investors of Snapchat, Clubhouse, Giphy and Hinge – is still in its Beta testing phase but has already facilitated more than half a million matches.
So what’s your next move, Tinder?
