For all of their success, swipe-y dating apps like Tinder or Bumble face a problem once their users have matched: It's hard to find things to discuss with total strangers. What exactly are you supposed to say in response to hand-waving emoji?
In an effort to solve this, Tinder has created a scripted choose-your-own adventure series that it hopes will supply its young users with raw material for conversations on its platform. The goal is to counteract that chronic dating-app issue: conversations that die almost as soon as they begin.
The project, called SwipeNight, consists of four episodes. One will air each week on the Tinder app. In each episode, users who participate will be ushered through an apocalyptic scenario and prompted to make a series of choices, from the seemingly unimportant (how to best DJ a party) to the critical (whose life to save). The show features a cast of young diverse actors and, like a video game, gives the user a first-person perspective on the action.
Participants will then show up in each other's lists of potential matches. Some of the choices they made during the show will be visible on their profiles. That is when, the company hopes, a number of those people will swipe right on each other and talk about what they experienced.
Last year Tinder set up a team to survey hundreds of young people. This research helped the company see members of Generation Z as fundamentally different from older generations (and that includes millennials, the oldest of whom are nearly 40). Defining characteristics included Gen Z's immense comfort on social platforms and immense discomfort with defining relationships, or even using words like "dating" and "flirting."