Key Takeaways

Once upon a time, a generation of young people flocked to dating apps to find their soulmates. Now, Hinge is writing a new chapter for dating app users. 

Hinge is producing a five-part weekly storytelling series on Substack as part of its “No Ordinary Love” campaign, which first launched back in 2024. Today’s top literary personalities have turned the real-life love stories of Hinge couples into relatable short stories. 

“No Ordinary Love” began by showing candid, relatable interviews with real-life Hinge couples that put their awkwardness and chemistry on display.

For the campaign’s second installment, the dating app is publishing more real-life love stories on Substack and as a limited-edition hardcover book called “An Anthology of Love Stories Almost Never Told.”   

Writer and professor Roxane Gay, who previously worked with Hinge on a zine of more real-life love stories, contributes a forward to the Substack series that details her own love story. It also explains Hinge’s goals for “No Ordinary Love.” 

“The five couples featured in No Ordinary Love were all willing to risk diving into the unknown when they matched on Hinge,” Gay writes. “They had enough hope to believe something promising was on the horizon.” 

This sums up Hinge’s goal for its “No Ordinary Love” series: To appeal to Hinge users who are ready to take their search for love to vulnerable new places — including offline. 

Hinge Reaches Out To True Romantics On Substack 

Jen Winston (“GREEDY: Notes From A Bisexual Who Wants Too Much”), William Rayfet Hunter (“Sunstruck”), Hunter Harris (“Hung Up”), Tomasz Jedrowski (“Swimming in the Dark”), and Upasna Barath (“Comedic Timing”) are turning the real-life love stories of Hinge couples into modern short stories on Substack. 

Writers use Substack to disseminate their work, usually in the form of essays and newsletters, to subscribers. The essays are often highly personal and introspective, much like the real love stories from Hinge’s “No Ordinary Love” campaign. 

By publishing on Substack, Hinge is reaching out to a subsect of daters who are ready to embrace the messiness of in-person connections, even if those connections are initially facilitated by a dating app. 

Jackie Jantos, Hinge’s president and chief marketing officer, said, “We want to complement Substack’s community of writers and readers with honest, authentic perspectives on love from exciting literary voices.”

Substack is a direct line to people who like to read, think, and mull over the intricacies of life and love. It’s a natural place for Hinge to share its own users’ love stories with the people who will most likely appreciate them the most. Publishing these stories via Substack also connects the campaign to the Gen Z-fueled platform, TikTok. 

Hinge hopes these stories will appeal to a generation of daters who have recently rediscovered the joy of reading on BookTok, a TikTok community that shares book recommendations and reading discussions.

BookTok is all the rage on TikTok. The most popular books on BookTok are in the romcom or fantasy romance genres, suggesting that today’s young people are not, in fact, completely devoid of the romanticism that seems to have ebbed in the digital age. 

It’s Not Hinge’s First Foray Into Offline Dating 

Gen Z is more disillusioned with dating apps than ever, and the fact that many of them have escaped into romantic literature is on-brand with their similar desire to return to in-person dating. 

“Dating is really hard, and someone’s story, with all the twists and turns, can be really humanizing and give people some hope,” Jantos recently told AdWeek. “Ultimately, the authenticity and truth of those stories are what people connect with.”

Hinge hopes that Substack stories depicting these authentic connections will also entice daters who prefer the romanticism that is often found in literature.

Hinge knows all about authenticity, or at least it is making an ongoing effort to provide it. In March, the dating app invested $1 million in various in-person dating events around London, New York, and LA. Its “One More Hour” program also aims to help people make romantic connections IRL. 

Now, Hinge’s Substack campaign and connection to BookTok tells a compelling story to its users: “We’re willing to listen to what modern daters want and reach out to them in non-traditional ways. Are you willing to swap quick swipes for deep emotional bonds?” 

Judging by the number of Gen Z daters clutching copies of buzzy romantic fiction to their chests, the answer is “yes.”