People are convinced Spotify will be the next great dating app
The music streaming platform just launched a DM feature. Naturally, everyone thinks it's how they'll find love.
I find it sweet how music and romantic courtship have always gone hand in hand. Up until the early aughts, people would pine for someone's affection by burning them a carefully curated mixtape CD. Once the streaming platforms took over, a hyper-specific playlist became the go-to move. (You haven’t lived until a crush has randomly texted you a “tracks that reminded me of you” playlist.) And if you’re a true yearner (or "stalker" as less romantic people might say), you know that you can learn a lot lurking on someone’s public Spotify playlists. Those can provide a window into the soul of the situationship who loves to withhold information, but is obviously the love of your life.
But this week, Spotify introduced a way to take things one step further. The streaming giant rolled out a direct messaging feature on their platform. This new offering, officially called “Messages,” is here to give listeners “a new way to share what you love.” For Spotify users age 16 and up, the intended function is to provide “a dedicated space within the app to share songs, podcasts, or audiobooks [users are] excited about with friends and family, and an easy way to keep track of recommendations.”
The internet’s immediate reaction to the announcement of the feature was telling. The mere mention of DMs led everyone to assume the primary use would be for flirting. (Who do we blame for the colloquial redefinition of the DM? Is Yo Gotti's 2016 song “Down In the DMs” the culprit?) The prevailing takeaway is that this feature will be used romantically, and that the app might soon become a breeding ground for love.
“I have often observed how the language surrounding love and desire evolves with technology,” says board-certified relationship expert Allie Thiess. “DMs have become a cultural signal, and ‘Sliding into the DMs’ carries a flirtatious weight because it feels private, fast, and intentional. It feels kinda naughty. That mix of secrecy and intimacy is why people often interpret DMs as romantic by default, even when the intent could be casual. DMs have become the modern love note, sometimes sweet, sometimes risky, always carrying more weight than the platform intended.”
The fact that Spotify DMs could allow users to send songs and/or directly react to someone else’s listening habits makes the sharing feel even more intimate. Music can be the clearest mirror of one’s mood, which is why many expect this feature to be a gold mine for romantic connections (and maybe a little drama).
A typical dating app can only show so much of you: five to six carefully picked pictures and maybe some fun facts that you rewrote 10 times over to sound as witty as possible. But your music listening behavior is such an honest and fully-formed reflection of your taste and interests. Maybe you’ll connect with someone streaming the same “Clairo songs to cry to” playlist every day, or you can send subtle signs that you want to take things further by DMing a casual hookup Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” every morning. The possibilities for finding great love this way feel endless. I can't wait for the first cute "We met on Spotify" origin tale to hit the streets.
Credit: Cosmopolitan