Gen Z has now decided that a beach photo posted to your Hinge profile in November is cringe. Because they can’t seem to stop coming up with new ways to perpetuate the constant anxiety that is their lives.
A Hily survey of 5,900 U.S. Gen Z and millennial daters found that 28% of Gen Z women and 34% of Gen Z men think swimwear, bikini, and shirtless photos are only acceptable on dating profiles during summer. If you post one in the off-season, one in three Gen Zers will see you as desperate. Around one in five Gen Z women think these photos shouldn’t be on dating apps at all, and 30% say they’re less likely to swipe right on someone who posts them after the season ends.
This is a lot of cultural energy to spend on someone’s vacation photo and the calendar date, but they have their reasons. More than half of Gen Z adults have avoided expressing themselves online out of fear of coming across as cringe. That same fear has prevented 55% of them from opening up to someone emotionally, held them back romantically, and stopped them from pursuing professional opportunities. “We’re definitely seeing social anxiety on the rise with Gen Z, and part of it is because people are online so much more—you can really worry and fear this judgment,” clinical psychologist Lauren Cook told the Detroit News. A swimwear photo posted out of season is, in this context, just the latest item added to the list of things that can get you judged.
Gen Z Has a New Dating App Ick: Off-Season Beach Photos
Hily’s broader Dating T.R.U.T.H. Report fills in the rest of the picture. Two in five Gen Zers think they seem less socially attractive for not going on enough dates. One in four thinks skipping high-profile dates hurts their perceived desirability. They’re monitoring how they come across on dating apps while also being largely unconvinced dating apps work, which is a very exhausting place to be.
To be fair, the data swings both ways. About half of Gen Z, 47% of women and 52% of men, think skin-showing photos actually help them decide if they’re attracted to someone. And 62% of women and 74% of men see them as confidence rather than desperation. So the divide is evenly split.
There has never been a universal rule about this, and there still isn’t. The only thing Gen Z has added to the whole thing is a lot more stress about it.
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