Hopelessly (Out of) Love and Super Bowl Gen Z Viewership 🏈
What percent of Gen Z'ers watched the big game? The ads? The halftime show? And in Valentine's Day-style: does Gen Z believe it is even possible to find true love anymore?
Looking at the two things that matter most this week with Gen Z.
1. Does Gen Z think they will find true love?
Hopefully, you have not been tired out of all the V-Day pieces out there today. Thankfully, we’re not going to talk about the terms that Gen Z’ers use to define all the different ways the dating world works today. The NYT has a decent piece on it, and Day One Agency has a fun quiz, but truthfully the terms change faster than the articles can be made, so it’s hardly worth diving into each and every one of them in this piece. So then…what?
This week, we asked our network of Gen Z’ers one important question:
“Is finding real romance more difficult for Gen Z than older generations?”
Yes, there is an endless sea of potential partners accessible in a matter of seconds thanks to Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and the variety of dating apps serving communities from niche to mainstream.
Should that not make dating easier for this generation? According to Gen Z’ers, it most certainly does not.
78% of respondents in our network said that it IS more difficult for Gen Z to find real romance than older generations.
But why? With access to so many people to date, how could it be more difficult?
We asked a Gen Z’er in our network (F, 23) to give us their perspective on these results. Here’s what they said:
With dating apps, things feel more fast-paced and rushed. You can move from one person to the next due to so many options being presented to you. This convenience of options can also make it harder to commit or feel happy with one person. It feels like there's less actual romancing happening with all the quick dates/hookups.
There's no mystery left -- we can see what everyone is up to at all times with social media (or you can at least stalk socials lol). you get to know so much about a person, and that can take away the allure of getting to know someone and learning about them over time.
Conflicting advice & no good resources -- social media offers so many conflicting viewpoints that it makes it hard to know the best way to date or find love. Also, it could be possible that our generation has seen less positive images of love from adult figures & the media.
What is clear is this - there is no one reason, but dating culture today is certainly not quite as positive as the apps and media may make it seem.
There’s much more we’d love to say on dating, but saving the good shtuff for the partners we’re working with on these issues :)
2. Did Gen Z’ers watch the Super Bowl this year?
With Super Bowl parties, live streams, and instantaneous highlights accessible on nearly every social platform, it’s tricky to get an accurate assessment of the number of Gen Z’ers that actually tuned in to the big game.
But if they even tuned in…what were they watching? Did Rihanna steal the show, did they even watch the commercials, or did they not watch at all?
On Monday morning, we asked Gen Z:
“What did you watch from the Super Bowl last night?”
39% of Gen Z said they watched the whole thing; the game, the ads, and the halftime show.
1 in 4 respondents said they just tuned in for the halftime show.
And 31% did not watch anything at all.
Fox reported that 113 million people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl this year, nearing a record high.
And while that number is impressive, it may not reflect the ways in which Gen Z’ers were engaging with the Super Bowl.
Hashtag views on TikTok for #superbowl saw a jump of nearly 4 BILLION over the last 4 days (Feb 10 - Feb 14, which is still counting).
What were so many people watching on TikTok??
Here is a screenshot of the top 8 most-viewed videos related to the Super Bowl over the last week. Notice any…patterns?
This moment was not about sports. It was about culture. And Rihanna. Ok so…mostly Rihanna.
According to a Launchmetrics report, following Rihanna’s performance, Google searches for Fenty Beauty rose by 833 percent, and the mention of Fenty Beauty generated a total of 5.6M in media impact value in the first 12 hours.
In the last 2 days alone, #fenty has gained 55.1M views on TikTok as well, accompanied by a jump of 2 BILLION views on #rihanna since Sunday.
So what does this all mean about Gen Z and the Super Bowl?
There are a few things that are clear from this data.
The Super Bowl is still a popular event for Generation Z - although perhaps not quite as popular viewed on live television as it is for the rest of Americans.
The Super Bowl as a moment that matters for Gen Z is still valid - but it does not matter in the same way it once did.
The advertising winner of the night for Gen Z was not any single one of the companies that paid $7M for a commercial.
It was Fenty. Using no commercials, and no direct references. Just a “special guest” product placement and a well-timed TikTok post.
Sure, it helps to have Rihanna as the face of the brand.
But hey - $7M can sure buy quite a few other things.