New wave of dating apps emphasize humor, personality

NEW YORK - For the past decade, swiping apps like Tinder have dominated the dating app world. They focus on physical appearance with the user swiping right if they're attracted to someone's photo and left if they're not. While appearance is still important to so many looking for love, there seems to be an even bigger emphasis now on humor, personality, and videos (as opposed to photos).

"They're the future of dating because they're approaching dating from a whole new aspect," Imad Jbara, a lead coach with NYC Wingwoman, a dating service based in Manhattan. "It's still somewhat physical, but it's adding kind of more life to it in terms of your sense of humor, what your activities are, what your hobbies are, and just kind of really understanding what you like in an individual."

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Jbara believes a lot of people looking to date, especially those in Gen Z, consider Tinder to be outdated. Now it's all about apps like Snack, which is video-based and described as "TikTok meets Tinder," Iris, which uses an algorithm to quickly narrow down your physical preference in a much shorter timeframe than Tinder, and Schmooze, which is all about humor and connecting through the shared love of memes.

"Gen Z is the largest generation, which has been using memes for everything, right from expressing their thoughts to communicating with each other or whether it is a frustration or agitation against someone in power," Schmooze founder and CEO Vidya Madhavan said. "They put everything they have been using in memes."

Madhavan said Schmooze is all about laughing your way to love, which daters could probably use a lot more of these days.