Communication

Dating app Hinge announced it has started a fund to support aspiring therapists and counselors from the LGBTQ and BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) communities. It will be providing $10,000 in scholarship to ten people towards their education in these fields, according to Mashable.  

From May 18 through June 17, applications for the fund will be open to U.S. college and graduate students in the mental health field, who can apply via the website HingeAdvocatesofTomorrow.com. According to Mashable, applicants complete the form and respond to two prompts about the mental health and wellness needs of the LGBTQ and/or BIPOC communities, and from there, twenty finalists will be selected. The finalists will be asked to create a video about how the scholarship will support their individual journey as well as their career.

Hinge has also collaborated with artist and mental health advocate Fariha Rosin, who authored a book on mental health resources for marginalized communities. She said in the company’s press release: “These times can be really dark and overwhelming in a lot of ways and that’s why we need mental health advocates. This initiative is helping people become the light bearers, creating generational ripple effects of healing.”

Several of Japan’s largest companies have turned to an AI dating app to help their employees find love during the pandemic.

According to Kyodo News, about 800 companies have signed up to offer the app Aill goen to employees, with the aim that they will be happier and more productive workers if they are in a good relationship. Companies are also hoping the dating app will provide a way to help employees who might be struggling with their mental health, since they have been unable to physically interact with others because of lockdowns.

The pool of matches will be limited only to participating company employees, providing a level of safety and accountability for users of the app. Aill goen is being offered to employees as part of their benefits package at work, according to Kyodo News. 

Online dating can be time consuming, but it can also lead to burnout when matches are looking for different things, according to a new study by dating app Badoo.

The dating app surveyed its users and found that 78 percent can relate to experiencing burnout from dating, and that it can often feel like a chore because of mismatched intentions about what they are looking for. Dating fatigue happens a lot when dates aren’t honest about what they want from a romantic connection, according to Metro UK.

In addition to the feeling of wasted time spent dating people who aren’t so compatible, there’s also a cost - daters spend roughly 285 GBP per year on what are ultimately failed dates, and on average, daters have about six bad dates per year.

Tinder just debuted a new ad campaign in time for the holidays, one of the busiest times of the year for dating app users. The company hired creative agency Mischief@NoFixedAddress to appeal to young Gen Z daters, its target audience.

According to The Drum, the new ad tagline is “you’re not for everyone,” and highlights in a funny way some unusual passions of singles that not everyone will find endearing. The ad is meant to assure its users that no matter how unique their interests are, there will always be someone who’s into the same things.

The first ad features a woman doing astral projection from her living room floor surrounded by candles who loses her zen focus when a roommate wanders in.

Bumble announced that it is exploring how to employ the metaverse and Web 3.0 into a relaunch of its Bumble BFF platform. It also added language badges as a new feature to help users connect. 

The move towards interactive experiences seems to be where dating apps are headed, driven by younger Gen Z daters who prefer game-like experiences to swiping. Tinder recently announced that it was testing an avatar-based virtual experience called Single Town where users could meet each other in real time on different online spaces, like “bars” before agreeing to meet in person.

The rising popularity of cryptocurrency is also a factor, as Bumble has indicated it intends to create a crypto goods economy to monetize the new platform, as has Tinder.

Tinder India has created and released a new film for its users about consent and what it looks like in modern-day dating culture. The purpose of the new film Closure is to spark conversation among daters and to help them create healthy boundaries. 

According to Business Insider India, the film centers around a young woman named Ria and her estranged ex-boyfriend Ved. The film starts with the two of them meeting on a beach and flashes forward through their budding romantic relationship. Then the movie cuts to a disturbed Ria and confused Ved sitting across from each other after some time has passed, having a difficult conversation about what drove them apart. We soon learn that Ved didn’t ask for her consent on their last night together. “You didn’t say no,” he insists, where Ria says “but I also didn’t say yes. I wish for once, you had asked.”

Ved later asked if she was seeing anyone, and it flashes to her budding new relationship with a man who does the things she longed for Ved to do – he asks permission before he kisses her or holds her hand. She also exercises more power in this new relationship by voicing what she wants, something she realizes she didn’t do while she was dating Ved. She has moved onto a happier, healthier relationship.