Gen Z Trends: Love at Pandemic Times

Photo by Luigi Burroni. Italian National Archive of Diaries & Little Museum of Diaries

Oh, to fall in love in a time of war. To long for his or her smile while the whole world seems to be falling apart, our hearts in the trenches, our courage as their only means of survival. Yeah, today’s trenches may feel more like our sofa & wifi, and today’s love letters from the war front may look more like WhatsApp emojis and FaceTime calls. Yet, the narration of romance in times of war never ceases to exist and fascinate. It only adapts to different generations and places (and viruses). Love storytelling is timeless, isn’t it?

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash
 

Speaking of tales about love, this month we’ve analysed for you, people in charge of telling Gen Z stories, the love rituals and struggles that are seeing the light during this “pandemic war”.

Yes, not even a global crisis and strict rules for self-isolation can stop humankind from trying to find greater meaning (or just some company, even if virtual) in a relationship with another being. Especially if these beings are the younger ones, whom worlds have just recently been starting to fill up with romances, heartthrobs and liaisons.

The need to cope with the social distancing imposed by the Coronavirus emergency, the longing for more thrilling encounters than those with friends and family on massive Skype calls, plus the tech dexterity and creativity of Gen Zers, have led to some fun, quirky, and overall brilliant initiatives when it comes to keeping the romance flowing in COVID-19 times.

Photo by Luigi Burroni. Italian National Archive of Diaries & Little Museum of Diaries

Starting from OKZoomer, a dating service created by two US college kids for other US college kids undergoing quarantine in various parts of the country. How does it work? You fill up a questionnaire and an algorithm, created by another young science graduate, matches you with someone who appears to share your interests and tastes. Then you can decide to meet them on Zoom or Skype for a date.

It’s so easy, it almost sounds crazy that no “serious” dating app has already acquired the project’s idea. And it’s no wonder OKZoomer has seen its popularity explode, reaching more than 6000 sign-ups through word-of-mouth and posts on college meme pages.

Ok, social distancing remains, and people, especially those who happen to have a “good” match, still don’t know when they’re going to be able to meet in person. But what are the perks of a dating service such as OKZoomer?

First, matches are not limited by proximity/region of residence/social ambience. If you’re an American college student, you may be matched with every other college student in the country. Thus, you could even encounter people whom you may not even know existed otherwise.

Second, no picture-based match-making. Which takes a lot of pressure off people who don’t feel like they’re “attractive enough”.

And speaking of taking the pressure off, being matched with someone far from your city/attending a different college means you don’t necessarily need to see them in person when you go back to school. Or ever at all. So much for fearing the “real-life test” of when you meet someone online and then you need to go out with them IRL.

Photo by Josh Felise on Unsplash

This sort of relief that comes from not having to go “all in” into a new date may explain why, even in a time when no one in their right mind should want to have close encounters with strangers, dating apps are witnessing an increasing activity of their users. Eleanor Peake on the New Statesman tells the stories of dating app users who are changing their habits on these services, and not for the worse.

People have more time (and maybe, more boredom to kill) to chat, to get to know each other. They don’t know if they’ll ever see each other, so, if the conversation lasts, it may as well be out of genuine interest.

Then there’s the “pressure” factor: no IRL dates on the horizon, no standards to match, no expectations to be broken.

Peake talks about “romantic burnout”, the extenuating cycle of being chosen because of physical appearance, trying to make things work as fast as possible to secure a date, and then being disappointed. Not like disappointments don’t happen during Corona times, of course. Yet, everything seems to be attenuated, with a time that extends indefinitely and can be inhabited by more thoughtful, less “hit and run” relationships.

Photo by Luigi Burroni. Italian National Archive of Diaries & Little Museum of Diaries

Do these thoughts seem too profound when applied to dating apps during a pandemic crisis? No worries, Gen Z has another antidote to philosophical musing about relationships. It’s called Love Is Quarantine, and it’s the first crowd-sourced social media show/dating service ever created. It’s blind dating, but on social media. During the quarantine.

Inspired by Netflix show Love Is Blind, Love Is Quarantine has people signing up with info and “audition videos” on a shared Google Sheet, then being matched by the creators (Nick Leshay and Vanessa Leshay, stage names of Thi Q. Lam and Rance Nix) with potential love interests. If a match gets along, their reactions and feelings will be shared on Instagram.

Watching young people explain why a date on the phone was good or bad, seeing them trying to find pros and cons in keeping up the conversation with complete strangers, reading the fans’ comments claiming OTPs and ships, is a marvellous and quirky way of realizing one thing about love in the time of Coronavirus: young people need it, and not only them.

Photo by Meghan Schiereck on Unsplash

Today’s distance is sometimes paradoxical (sometimes we can’t see our family even if they live one hour, or less, from us), but that doesn’t make it less real. And love, in all its shapes and sizes, is what crosses distances, whether it is in the form of the heartbreaking letters of our grandparents from the battlefront, or of the ingenious dating methods of Gen Z. Love is ubiquitous and a-temporal: that’s what makes it epic. And worth narrating.

And you, do you think Gen Z is changing love storytelling for good? What are the romantic rituals worth knowing in self-isolation times among young people? Drop us a line!

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This is part of YAD — Understanding Young Audiences Digest: a free monthly digest on young audiences for VOD and TV professionals. We’ve analysed millions of data points and we don’t mind sharing some of them — if this could help channels and commissioners to reach Gen Z, by understanding their needs, behavioural traits and intrinsic cultural values. 

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