It’s been nearly a decade since the millennial-led dating-app revolution forever changed the dating landscape with apps like Tinder and successors Bumble and Hinge. But like skinny jeans and side parts, it seems the swipe-based apps that defined dating as we know it are quickly becoming a thing of the past, an embarrassing vestige of rapidly fading millennial culture. Despite Tinder’s best efforts to woo its Gen Z user-base with bizarre in-app streaming series and social justice, swiping is out for Gen Z daters, who would apparently prefer their online dating experience to be more like TikTok.
That seems to be the working assumption behind Snack, anyway, which bills itself as a new Gen Z dating app inspired by the popular video-based social media platform.
“One day, I was scrolling through videos on TikTok and started to see these dating like profiles in my feed. I had this lightbulb moment where I realized people were trying to date on TikTok, but it’s fundamentally not built for it,” Snack founder Kimberly Kaplan told Newsweek. “You don’t know if someone is single, how old they are, where they are from and then how do you slide into their DMs? That’s when Snack was born.”
Unlike most mainstream dating apps, in which largely static user profiles are primarily composed of a series of photos and a bio, Snack profiles are video based. Users upload videos to their profiles, and can then scroll through other users’ videos in an Instagram/TikTok-like feed. Rather than swiping, users can “like” videos, and if two people like each other’s profiles, they will have the ability to message privately.
According to Snack’s website, the video-based model “promotes authenticity, transparency, and trust,” allowing users to build “meaningful connections.” Of course, “meaningful connections” have long been the promise at the core of every online dating venture, going all the way back to the days lonely singles browsed Match.com on desktop computers with dial-up internet. Moreover, a video-based format isn’t entirely new to dating technology. Many mainstream dating apps like Hinge already allow users to upload videos to their profiles, and one could even argue — as Michael Waters recently did over at Vox — that video-based dating actually has its origins in the VCR dating of the 20th century.
Regardless, it seems Gen Z is pivoting to video, and so are their dating apps.
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