Why Gen Z is ditching mainstream dating apps for ‘hyper-niche’ spaces

Here’s a not-so-novel theory of cultural development that you should be aware of, especially if you’re an older person wondering about the behaviors of younger people: When TV and the internet first emerged on the cultural scene, they had a unifying effect on people. After all, there were only a handful of television channels you could watch, so everyone watched The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, M*A*S*H, and All in the Family. Just take a look at IMDB’s list of the Most Watched Series Finales Ever, and you’ll see it’s dominated by shows that first aired in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. 

Fast forward to the early 2000s, when social media first emerged, and you have a similar effect: everyone had a MySpace or Facebook account because there wasn’t really any other game in town. But that unity rapidly gave way to fragmentation. Just as cable TV fragmented into Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, Amazon TV, etc, so too did social media fragment into smaller, more niche spaces, from Tumblr blogs and subreddits to Discord servers and Twitch chat rooms. 

Driven by the all-powerful algorithm, feeding different people different interests, the younger generations disappeared into siloed parts of the internet, many of which earned nicknames of their own. TikTok is the best example: there’s BookTok for users who love to read, FinTok for users who want to learn about investing and compound interest, and of course, FitTok for people who want to learn about compound lifts or receive dieting advice. Crucially, you can spend hundreds of hours in any one of these niche communities without ever learning about the existence of the others. 

Gen Z’s entire online experience has been heavily curated by algorithms, so it’s no wonder their dating app behavior is different as well. 

Gen Z’s retreat from online dating

The numbers started to tell the tale long before the commentators caught on. In 2023, a major Statista survey of online dating behavior found something odd, even trend-breaking: the vast majority (61 percent) of dating app users were between the ages of 30 and 34, while the much larger age group of 18-29 year olds represented just 26 percent of total dating app users. It’s even odder when you consider that, since people tend to partner up over time, Gen Z should have many more single people than millennials. 

That realization led to a bevy of headlines (“Gen Z Is Leaving Dating Apps Behind” comes to mind) predicting the death of dating apps, not to mention a 38 percent average decline in the stock price of dating apps, but it doesn’t mean Gen Z isn’t interested in romance or connection.

In fact, it just means they’re taking an entirely different approach to finding love, especially compared to millennials. Whereas single millennials can still be found on the apps, by and large, Gen Z singles are reverting to “hyper-niche” spaces to filter out people before they even reach the swiping stage.

What is a “hyper-niche” space?

Think of hyper-niche spaces as small, value-based communities. If you’re a part of FitTok, for example, it’s reasonable to assume that everyone else you meet in that space will value working out, eating healthy foods, and self-improvement (aka the grindset mindset). Because these things are such a big part of your life, it’s helpful to meet people who already share these values.  

And if this approach is true of fitness communities, it also applies to online communities built around hobbies (reading, playing video games, knitting) or politics or religion. It has even started to apply to the specific app or software people use: X vs BlueSky

This, too, has shown up in the data. A major study of eharmony users found, for example, that 28 percent of Gen Z daters would cancel a date if their prospective partner didn’t share their politics, nearly a 10-point increase from millennials and Gen X respondents, with a similar gap showing up for differences in religious belief. 

What does this mean for Gen Z?

On the one hand, these trends are arguably positive. Dating app fatigue is a well-documented phenomenon, and even millennials are suffering burnout. Hyper-niche communities take a lot of the pressure off of finding one compatible person in a sea of incompatible people, pre-selecting for others who share your values and interests. This is a major reason people are returning to IRL dating, where their friends, family, and social circles might introduce them to people, rather than an anonymous algorithm. 

But there’s a dark side to this, too, and it comes from becoming too invested in any given silo, too intolerant of people who don’t share your values or interests. Another striking finding emerged in the data: 60 percent of Gen Z have gone “no-contact” with a friend or family member in the past year, and 25 percent of those who went no-contact listed a difference in values as the reason. 

Add this to the fact that Gen Z spends an average of five hours a day online, by far the most of any generation, and it’s easy to see how their digital existence can overtake their online one, with hyper-niche spaces looking more like bunkers to shelter them from a hostile world rather than real communities that take them out of the digital world and into the real one.