Dating

It’s the 2020 election season, and political campaigns are competing for young voters – and turning to dating apps Tinder and Bumble for help.

Young campaign volunteers are using dating apps to chat with their matches and advertise for their candidates over dating apps, according to International Business Times. Some are even springing for premium versions of Tinder so they can change location and engage voters in other states. Still other app users are advocating for more political engagement, including announcing in their profiles that they only date registered voters.

We might be social distancing, but rest assured - singles are looking to dating apps to keep their love lives going during the coronavirus pandemic. 

A recent survey conducted by Dating.com found that there was a spike in dating app activity among users in countries around the world as the coronavirus becomes widespread. As many as 82 percent of singles are turning online as they self-quarantine in their homes.

From those surveyed, more than 50 percent of daters said that they would be interested in conducting online dates to get to know people they’ve met online to avoid spreading or catching the virus. Thirty percent of those surveyed said that they are going to just stick with messaging and chatting with matches using their dating apps until they are able to meet up in person. Notably, only 5 percent of singles reported that they are going to stop dating altogether until the virus passes.

We’ve all seen a rom-com meet-cute. A soon-to-be couple accidentally touches hands while reaching for the same item at a grocery store. Or ends up covered in coffee when one person literally runs into the other on their walk into work. Or gets into an argument during a minor case of road rage. The best meet-cutes in movies happen under dubious circumstances, often at the most awkward or embarrassing moments of the characters lives.

In real life, most of us would prefer to meet our future partners under better conditions, and thanks to online dating, these love-at-first-site meetings are becoming a thing of the past. According to an article published by Stanford University in 2019, matchmaking is now done primarily by algorithms. Today’s heterosexual singles are more likely to meet a romantic partner online than through personal connections. But is that actually what we want?

Image: OkCupid

OkCupid launched a new provocative ad campaign called “Ask Yourself,” which focuses on questions that can serve as deal-breakers to younger daters. The campaign doesn’t shy away from getting political, since the majority of its customers are most interested in partners that align with them politically.

The campaign includes illustrated outdoor posters that feature the most popular topics discussed among OkCupid users. For example one poster states: “It’s OK not to date a man who won’t vote for a woman” and “It’s OK to choose to only date someone who’s pro-choice.” It also features animations and a series of polls for Instagram stories, gauging people’s opinions on a wide range of topics from light to serious - such as thoughts on body hair, climate change, and Trump’s impeachment.

Image: Pipsay

Four months after Facebook Dating’s launch, consumer insights platform Piplsay has released a report on the long-awaited feature. Piplsay polled 21,242 Americans to find out how successful Facebook’s foray into online dating has been so far. The short answer: it’s complicated.

Dating was introduced at Facebook’s annual F8 developers’ conference in 2018. After initially launching in a handful of countries abroad, the service finally made its US debut in September 2019. News outlets and dating industry competitors were quick to comment on the launch in exhaustive detail, but it appears that Facebook’s clout and the media’s seemingly-infinite coverage have not been enough to catapult Dating into the industry’s upper echelon.

It’s been decades since The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game were primetime hits, but if a new subscription streaming service has its way, the dating show genre is about to enter a renaissance. Quibi's upcoming series The Hot Drop will take an interactive approach to reality dating entertainment by giving viewers the power to decide who should and shouldn't live happily ever after. ITV America’s Sirens Media and ITV Studios Entertainment will produce.

Each week, The Hot Drop will share a profile of an eligible single on the Quibi app. Interested viewers will respond by submitting videos to apply for the opportunity to be a contestant and date the single of the week. On Wednesdays, the series will name the top three candidates and let viewers vote to choose who goes on the adventure. The candidate with the most votes will meet the featured single on Friday and go on an over-the-top first date while the audience watches in the Quibi app. One single’s journey ends when they decide at the end of the week if they want to continue dating their match “off the app” or remain single.