The year-old from Las Vegas used an app called Snack to scroll through videos of women walking down the street, showing off their outfits, or lip-syncing to the camera. One caught his eye β a tall, pretty blond recording herself walking through Disney California Adventure Park to the Avengers Campus, where she ordered a cocktail at the bar.
Looking for love with someone who shares your Myers-Briggs personality type, or your love of video games? Want to see a blurry photo of your prospective partner that gets progressively sharper the longer you chat? The options abound. Heterosexual couples in the U. Nearly half of all to year-olds say they have used a dating app in their life, according to a Pew Research Center study. Underscoring its intention to court a new generation of daters, Snack eliminated the swipe gesture in favor of pressing a heart button or sending a message.
Watch L. Times Today at 7 p. TikTok, where Snack advertises, played a major role in its creation. Kaplan was scrolling through the app one day in early when she came across a video of a woman introducing herself with her name, age and star sign.
She encouraged her Gen Z employees and investors to incorporate their voices and feedback into the development of Snack. They told her most people of their generation only used the swiping apps because they had to, preferring to move the conversation to a more casual social media platform such as Instagram or Snapchat as quickly as possible.
Taking a page from the early days of Tinder, the company is focusing on on-the-ground promotion at college campuses and currently has the most users in California, Texas, Florida and New York. The app is available only to those ages 18 to It also produces a dating show streamed live every week on TikTok. Although Kaplan declined to disclose user numbers, Snack, which launched in February , was the 10th-most-downloaded dating app in the U. Schmooze, another dating app wooing Gen Z, is also organized around a form of digital content the generation has fallen in love with β memes.
