Bumble's CEO is making her comeback, but will her app be able to do the same?
On Friday, Bumble announced the return of founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, who replaces the company’s current CEO Lidiane Jones. Jones, who was the previous CEO of Slack, had only been in the role for a year, and left for "personal reasons."
Although no specific reasons have been given yet for Jones' departure and Wolfe Herd's return, reinvigorating Bumble's brand could be the plan. Dating apps have been losing traction during the past couple of years as Gen Zers and millennials tire of online dating. Bumble also faced major backlash last May after running billboard ads targeted toward women with anti-celibacy messages including “you know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer.”
In a statement released on social media, Bumble acknowledged it had “made a mistake.”
The plan majorly backfired, with women taking to TikTok, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) to talk about just how offensive Bumble’s new ad campaign was to them. The ad campaign was meant to be a major part of Bumble’s turnaround plan after 70% of women surveyed by the app said they experienced dating app burnout. Shares fell by about 54% from the time Bumble allowed men to message first to the end of 2024.
How Gen Z dates
Many Gen Z and millennials were already blasting the dating app experience on TikTok and other social media. The generational shift is real—79% of college students and other Gen Zers are forgoing regular dating app usage and instead opting for in-person interactions, according to an Axios and Generation Lab study from October 2023.
Despite a 16% year-over-year revenue increase in 2023, Bumble also announced plans to lay off 30% of its workforce last year ahead of its brand relaunch that was intended to have a "stronger appeal to younger users," former CEO Lidiane Jones said during a February 2024 earnings call. Hinge released a study telling Gen Zers to embrace the “cringe” of online dating.
Are dating apps worth it?
Many users cite a declining experience on dating apps over the last few years as the apps have scrambled to increase revenue and built in more paid features. While dating app usage spiked during the pandemic, it's since leveled off as Gen Z and millennials seek more authentic real-world connections. And as platforms test out "AI wingmen," many users fear dating apps will no longer be worth the trouble of wading through a sea of inauthentic spammy content. Some have even sworn off the apps entirely.
There are a variety of reasons why these younger generations are abandoning the apps. Fortune spoke with several Gen Zers and millennials to find out the main reasons why they’re deleting the apps.
1. They're a ‘wasteland’
The first word that comes to mind when thinking about dating apps for 24-year-old communications professional Max Gomez is “wasteland.”
“I think the user pool on a lot of these apps has declined,” says Gomez, who lives in New York City’s Brooklyn neighborhood. “Gen Z is just simply not using these [apps] as much anymore.”
Gomez also says the apps have become increasingly reminiscent of other social media platforms like Instagram where users are more concerned about curating the right photos and written responses than about representing themselves in an authentic way.
“The goal of the app I feel like is to be authentic and be goofy with strangers,” says Gomez, who recently took a six-month hiatus from using the apps. He’s tried apps geared toward heterosexual and homosexual relationships, “and all of them are way worse than I remember.”
2. Overly sexualized themes
Other users have been turned off by dating apps because they’ve become yet another place for women to be solicited for elicit pictures and messages. Louise Mason, a 42-year-old freelance marketing specialist from Doncaster, U.K., quit Bumble and Tinder cold turkey because she had been receiving overly sexualized messages and has been “accidentally celibate” for years after deciding against having one-night stands in the pursuit of a meaningful relationship.
“I wasn’t like taking a vow of celibacy, it was actually just [realizing] I deserve more than this,” says Mason, who has been single since 2007, has never been married, and has no kids. “Straight away, they want you to send them pictures. And it was getting to the point where none of the guys actually wanted to meet up in real life. It’s like [there’s] this online bubble for them.”
Mason says she also got to a point where she realized she thought these men were on the wrong app.
“If you want pics, go on OnlyFans and pay for that,” she says.
3. Dating apps have gotten expensive
Another chief complaint from younger generations using dating apps is that the platforms encourage users to purchase memberships for a better shot at finding the perfect match. And the irony of these paid plans is that many apps offer months-long or year-long memberships when ideally users would like to meet someone suitable as soon as possible and delete the apps for good.
If I’d paid for a month of online dating, “I would like to think that I've met somebody that I could at least be dating monogamously,” Mason says. “Okay, I might not end up marrying the guy and I might come back to the app to find the next one, but I don't want to pay for three months.”
Gomez also explained the notion of “Rose Jail,” a theory that Gen Zers and millennials have discussed on TikTok that has to do with Hinge’s paid membership tiers and other paid components of the app. Hinge users can pay for “roses” in order to unlock their most compatible matches—but users who don’t want to pay or can’t afford to pay to use the app are essentially SOL on meeting who they may actually be most compatible with.
“People are supposing that the way Hinge is trying to get you to spend money is they're keeping all these people in ‘Rose Jail’ because you have to buy a rose to send to them,” Gomez says. “I feel like they don't show up in your feed otherwise, and so they’re keeping away from you these compatible matches that you won't be able to get unless you pay for that.”
4. How to meet people without dating apps
While there are active deterrents for younger generations to steer clear of dating apps, some are simply ditching them out of a desire to just meet someone in real life.
“I don’t want to just be chatting people online,” Mason says. “I don’t want a penpal.”
But at the same time, it’s become increasingly difficult for Gen Zers and millennials who lost several of their formative adult socializing years to COVID to make organic connections in real life. Without a dating app telling them someone is single, has their same sexual preferences, and is interested in them, it can feel daunting for people to approach others in settings where they could potentially meet someone.
“It's a generational thing to an extent. I think people are more wary of strangers,” Gomez says. “My college experience was interrupted by COVID, and I missed out on like two years of organic social interaction that might have primed me for more of that later in life.”
But Gomez and his friend are pushing themselves to create more in-real-life meetups. They hosted a “Champagne and Shackles” party where they matched up all of the partygoers. They posted fliers around their neighborhood and invited a bunch of strangers for some matchmaking “in real time.”
“I don't think anyone walked away [as] a couple from that, but people were very down for it,” Gomez says. “They were either sick of the apps or [said it’s] just a novel way to meet someone that's not available to them every day.”
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on May 16, 2024.
