Anna Kai believes in self-illumination. On TikTokEQUAL @itsmaybebothshe markets beauty products for Garnier, Nivea and Nexxus Hair Care and offers relationship advice to her 1.3 million followers. “If you can work yourself into believing that a man who doesn’t love you really loves you, then why can’t you work yourself into believing that you’ll find a man who does love you?”
For Blaine Anderson, finding the right partner is all about clever marketing, and “great guys are often SUCKS,” a note on her website exclaims. She has tips for every situation that can and will arise during the dating process: how to text like a “man of high value,” What Mistakes to avoid on the first datehow to make women obsessedand the best ways to Attract them without talking. In case you’re curious, it starts with good posture and grooming. “If you haven’t shopped since the Obama administration, it’s time,” she said in a video uploaded to TikTok in May.
“As a relationship therapist, I’ve actually spent my career studying the art of attraction and human psychology, so I know that these things work,” says Kimberly Moffit, a therapist. psychotherapist in Toronto, said. speak in a TikTok video from 2022. Maybe your crush is shy and you want to know if he’s “flirting” with you? One obvious sign: dirty jokes. “An aggressive guy just wants to flirt with you,” she said speak“But a real shy guy will test the waters first.”
If you haven’t heard, it’s a boom time for influencer dating. According to one new survey Among single adults aged 18 to 62 surveyed by the app Flirtini, one in four cited TikTok as their primary source of relationship information, and nearly 50 percent of those surveyed Many people turn to social networks to ask for dating advice.
This phenomenon has created an ecosystem of thoughtful, overzealous, trend-chasing dating influencers who think they know what’s best for you. The market is now flooded with gurus offering romantic tips and guidance to anyone who’ll listen. Everyone from certified therapists and life coaches to that annoying friend who just discovered bell hooks’ All about love and want to share everything they learn, positioning themselves as an influencer in today’s dating scene. The effect was horrifying. On TikTok, the hashtags #datingadvice and #relationshipadvice have more than 16 billion views.
And it’s not all bad advice. Kai’s self-deception tip is actually pretty clever. (Kai and the other influencers mentioned in this story did not respond to messages seeking comment.) There’s just one problem: Misinformation about relationships is spreading fast.
An increasing number of young people now get their news from TikTok, according to a 2023 study Pew Research Center Research“So it makes sense that they would turn to the app for relationship advice,” said Liesel Sharabi, a professor at Arizona State University who studies the impact of technology on interpersonal relationships. The growing reliance on the platform as a source of information for love advice has led many users to form parasocial relationship with influencers offering advice. Unlike in-person, IRL relationships, these tend to be one-sided. But emotionally, they feel real.
“Some people may feel like they’re getting dating advice from a trusted friend because they’ve developed a strong sense of familiarity and connection with that person,” Sharabi says. “The problem is that when it comes to dating, there are a lot of people on TikTok who claim to be experts without any kind of training or qualifications, which can make it difficult to separate fact from opinion.”
Not all advice is created equal. As dating influencers gain more and more attention on social media, the rise in relationship misinformation becomes harder to control. Sharabi describes this as “false or misleading information about relationships that cannot be evaluated with scientific data and can perpetuate harmful stereotypes.”
