Why are young people so keen on “finding a partner”?

What is the hookup culture? Why do young people love hookup socializing? What implications does this have for brands? Let's take a look at the author's analysis.

It is an indisputable fact that "hitchhiking culture" is popular among young people. There are so many types of hitchhiking, such as eating hitchhiking, chatting hitchhiking, traveling hitchhiking, fitness hitchhiking, milk tea hitchhiking, slacking off hitchhiking, gaming hitchhiking, weight loss hitchhiking, postgraduate entrance examination hitchhiking, and star-chasing hitchhiking. These types of hitchhiking are so varied that "hitchhiking culture" is becoming more and more popular.

According to TikTok, the number of views of content related to the topic #饭伴子was 11.86 billion , while the number of views of content related to the topic #艾特你的饭伴子请你吃was as high as 41.68 billion .

So, what is the hookup culture? Why do young people love hookup-style socializing? What implications does it have for brands?

1. Everything can be matched, promoting the refinement of circles

What exactly is the hitchhiking culture?

The culture of "hitchhiking" is regarded as a new type of vertical social relationship, which is temporary, social and regular. From a social perspective, it does not have the burden of interpersonal communication. Hitchhiking has the characteristics of mutual companionship without disturbing each other, and mutual needs without spending time and energy to maintain the relationship.

In the social relationship of young people, the intimacy they need is divided into different dimensions. In many situations such as work, entertainment, travel, and slacking off, they can find someone who is willing to take risks with them so that they will not fall into loneliness. It can be said that the main feature of "dating culture" is precise companionship, which is an efficient, fast, easy and simple way of socializing.

At the same time, the partner culture has also promoted the refinement of circles.

As Internet natives, young people of Generation Z are keen on socializing and 5G surfing. They like to spend energy and money on their hobbies, have a keen interest in personalized products, and are willing to pay for emotional values ​​full of childhood memories and humanistic care.

The emergence of the dating culture just happens to attract people with similar living habits, common interests, and similar purchasing tendencies. They gather together through the dating culture and resonate with each other in values, self-expression, interests and hobbies, and lifestyles. From this perspective, the " Pating Culture" has gradually become a lifestyle for young people while achieving the refinement of the circle.

2. Why do young people love to socialize with friends?

In the talk show "13 Invitations", the concept of "disappearing nearby" was proposed. In other words, people living in modern cities either have a special liking for the virtual game world, or spend more time in the online world, and are indifferent and unkind to the relationships "nearby". However, humans are social animals, and the repressed social needs will not change because of this, so "hitchhiking culture" has become a social solution for social groups.

The emergence and popularity of a phenomenon always has its own logic, and the popularity of partner-style social interaction is closely related to factors such as the growth environment, living habits, and ways of making friends of contemporary young people.

1. Self-satisfaction is the most important thing, satisfying your own need for companionship

In the digital age, young people who grew up under the one-child policy yearn for someone to talk to and have company, but they hate complicated and flattering interpersonal relationships, which intensifies their need for intimacy and emotion.

The emergence of "hitchhiking culture" just meets the young people's needs for companionship. It allows them to socialize at will without a heavy psychological burden. It can help them eliminate loneliness to a certain extent, effectively fill the emotional gap of young people, and provide a more relaxing and soothing experience.

For young people with a strong sense of self-awareness, nothing is more important than "pleasing oneself". In normal interpersonal communication, it is inevitable to use polite words and observe each other's expressions. This kind of traditional utilitarian social interaction requires a lot of energy and money. However, in the "pairing culture", there is no need to deal with complex interpersonal communication. Consumption is AA, and you can move forward and backward as you please. There is no sense of burden in normal interpersonal communication, and you can meet your needs for companionship. Therefore, "pairing culture" has become a new way of doing things for contemporary young people.

2. Use “friends” to select friends and improve social efficiency

At the same time, young people can also use the "matching" method to screen friends and improve their social efficiency.

Under normal circumstances, a "tap" is a pair or a group of like-minded people who come together because of the same interests, tastes, and preferences. They get to know each other through the "tap culture" and appreciate each other in long-term communication. As they get to know each other better, if they appreciate each other and feel that they are suitable for each other, the "tap" can develop into a closer relationship, such as friends or lovers. On the contrary, they can still maintain a "tap" relationship, engage in shallow social interaction, need each other but do not disturb each other, and spend their fragmented time on what they are focused on, thereby improving their social efficiency.

It is worth noting that "hookup culture" relies more on relationships between strangers. Shallow social interactions lack mutual understanding of each other's backgrounds and the constraints of social circles, and lack certain security guarantees. This is an issue that the public needs to pay attention to and care about.

3. For brands, how to use "partner culture" for marketing?

It is obvious that the reason behind the popularity of hookup-style social interaction is young people’s need for like-minded people and shallow social interaction.

Brands use "partner culture" for marketing, which is actually to make the brand maintain the same frequency resonance with young people in many aspects such as values, hobbies, living habits, consumption tendencies, etc. It is also to perceive user emotions and capture consumption trends, and then realize refined seeding categories by positioning product circles to segment user circles, and then adapt to the common scenes of brands and consumers to achieve marketing.

For example, Tmall, which has become popular with new products in March, has joined forces with technology brands such as Huawei, iQOO, and vivo in the "Tmall March New Season" event to meet young people's daily check-in and photo-taking needs. It has also joined forces with clothing brands such as adidas, Under Armour, Bosideng, and lululemon, which are popular among young people, to provide young people with a versatile wearing experience. In addition, it has cooperated with brands such as Estee Lauder, MAC, and L'Oreal to stimulate users' desire to consume. In this way, the brand has successfully built content scenes and shelf scenes, achieved multi-product and multi-scene content co-creation, and released the consumption choices of users from different circles in the event, building a new consumption stage for the culture of pairing.

Tmall integrates the interests of the younger generation and links the seasonal limitations of early spring products with the advantages of the platform. Through seasonal wear and spring-limited scenarios, it achieves the integration of usage scenarios and purchasing needs, broadens consumers' social consumption scenarios to the greatest extent, and allows the culture of pairing to spread among young people, constantly forming new consumer demands and helping brands achieve precision marketing.

Through the combination of content scenarios, shelf scenarios and user interest scenarios, a deep binding of platforms, users and brands is achieved. In addition to deepening the core selling points of products and stimulating users' interest in products, it has gained a wave of user favor and created an innovative gameplay with both good volume and traffic.

4. Final Thoughts

The brand focuses on the "pairing culture" that young people are keen on, which is actually to create activities that are in line with popular trends and user consumption psychology, and build a new field through interactions in multiple scenarios and topics, helping young people to unleash their nature, achieve interaction between brands and users and strong product coverage, and bring marketing growth, killing two birds with one stone.

Author: Mr. Bingfa WeChat public account: Marketing Bingfa