Leftists are determined to date each other - and not settle for liberals: ‘Politics are the new religion'
Representatives for Hinge would not comment, but plenty of eligible New Yorkers did, claiming they would redownload the app due to Mamdani's success, in spite of their dating fatigue. 'Now I'm clocking in like it's a full-time job,' one user posted on TikTok. 'If he can find love on that app maybe I can,' another wrote in a caption.
However, they could run into an ideological hurdle while filling out their profiles. Alongside answering basic questions – 'Do you smoke, drink or do drugs? Where did you go to college?' – Hinge ask singles to choose their political affiliation: liberal, conservative, moderate, not political, or the mysterious 'other'.
Some people to the left say the label 'liberal' does not encapsulate their socialist views. They associate it with establishment figures such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – or Mamdani's rival, former governor Andrew Cuomo. Many liberals deem proposals by Hinge's golden boy (freezing rent, taxing the super-rich, making buses free) too radical. A socialist might want to distance themselves from such center-leaning liberalism and instead embrace the 'hot commie summer' that hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb warned his fellow billionaires of.
'There's a real appetite to date leftists now,' said Abby Beauregard, fundraising chair for Democratic Socialists of America's New York chapter. She said that Mamdani's victory reinvigorated the dating scene in in the city, 'but it's really hard to find explicitly leftist dating spaces. Most dating apps have a liberal option, but no leftist option, and it's not a turn-on to see 'other', because that could mean anything.' (For instance, far-right or communist.)
So lefty singles are finding more explicit ways to signal their politics to like-minded love matches, on Hinge and beyond.
Some have turned their dating profiles into mini-manifestos, writing out their entire belief system as answers to the apps' prompts. It's common to see watermelon emojis as euphemisms for solidarity with the Palestinian people. Some users will warn that they'll swipe left on Terfs (the acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminists), cops or Donald Trump supporters.
'It's important for me to see those signifiers,' said Caroline, a 38-year-old florist who lives in Queens. (She other sources are going by their first name for privacy reasons.) 'There's a nice feeling on the apps right now with people being proud to be communists or leftists, and they're saying that.'
But she's wary of anyone who comes off as too lefty. 'That seems kind of tryhard,' she said. 'It can read as too performative, that you're fishing for alt-girls or you're a centrist who just wants someone freaky from Bushwick.'
Tinder, OK Cupid and the kink-friendly app Feeld allow users to write their own bios, unlike Hinge, and they can choose within those bios whether they reveal their political affiliations. In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Tinder also launched profile 'stickers' so users could signal the issues they felt strongly about, such as 'voting for reproductive rights'.
For her part, Caroline, who uses Feeld, wrote in her profile that she's 'far left' and 'COVID-cautious'. That feels like enough for her. 'Saying 'I love vaccines!', 'free Palestine!' or 'fuck Trump!' would be trite. It's all implied.'
Dennis Mulvena describes himself as 'very left-leaning'. He used to keep his affiliations private on Hinge because he believed there was room for nuance in discussing politics, but recently listed himself as liberal.
'With the return of Trump in the last two years, it's important to have that out there,' said Mulvena, 30, who works in customer service for a car manufacturer. 'Admittedly gay people who live in Brooklyn tend to lean left, but I have had the experience of going on a date with someone who then revealed he was part of his college's Young Republicans club.' That was the last time he assumed that everyone he matched with would share the same views as him.
According to an NBC News poll from April, the partisan gap between gen Z women, who are more likely to say they are Democrat, and gen Z men, who have shifted right, is the widest of all generations. And, increasingly, a person's politics have an impact on their perceived desirability. While past generations may have thought nothing about a conservative and liberal romantic pairing ('don't talk about politics or religion at the dinner table'), 60% of 18- to 24-year-olds think it's important to date or marry someone who shares their political beliefs.
'Politics is the new religion,' said Dr Jess Carbino, a former sociologist for Bumble and Tinder who studies dating apps. 'It's become the way that people choose to frame how they look at the world and their values.'
Lily, a 23 year-old socialist who was recently laid off, is wary of seeing someone identify as 'not political' on Hinge. 'I'm immediately scared of what that means,' they said. 'As a queer person living through everything that's happening in this country, I need to know someone has a baseline care for people and their community.'
In New York, more voters between the ages of 25 and 34 – a mix of gen Z and younger millennials – turned out to vote in the Democratic primary than any other age cohort, indicating a vigor for leftist politics. Recently, Lily has seen young people write on Hinge that they'd only go out with someone who voted for Mamdani or that they'd never go out with a Cuomo supporter. They have seen multiple people answer the Hinge prompt 'when was the last time you cried?' with: 'when Zohran won'. (They presume these were happy tears.)
This is not to say New York is a young Bolshevik paradise: conservatives in the city are also trying to find each other. Some have gone into voluntary exile from mainstream dating apps, creating their own options. 'Our dating apps have gone woke,' reads the description for Date Right Stuff, one such app backed by Peter Thiel. 'Connect with people who aren't offended by everything.'
In March, Date Right Stuff hosted a singles event at New York's Trump Tower called 'make America hot again'. It was a coming-out night for what the app's former chief marketing officer Raquel Debono called 'city conservatives', or Republicans who prefer urban life to small towns and tradwifedom.
They are not the only ones going off-app: the Mamdani effect on New York's lefties could not be contained to Hinge.
In early July, young people gathered inside a cocktail bar on the Lower East Side for a 'sexy socialist singles' event hosted by New York's DSA. Those looking for something casual – or, as the host put it, 'if you just want fast and free, like Zohran's buses' – were sent to one part of the bar, while those who wanted 'a slow burn, like taxing the fucking rich' went to another. At one point, organizers directed polyamorous attendees to a room upstairs, where they could mingle with other non-monogamous individuals.
Upstairs, Sven, 25, an economics master's student who lives in Bushwick, said that young people view the DSA as a social club just as much as a platform for socialist candidates. 'I saw a post on Reddit talking about how all Zohran's canvassers are hot, and we have soccer leagues and book clubs,' they said. 'It's a great way to make friends.'
Downstairs, back in monogamyville, Lauren, a video editor who lives in Astoria (the Queens neighborhood Mamdani represents as a New York assemblymember), waited for a friend who was off flirting. 'There's definitely an energy when I wear my Zohran T-shirt out,' she said. 'People are revved up. They'll call you from across the street saying, 'What's up?' or 'I love that guy.' It's a real conversation starter.'
New York's DSA will continue its sexy socialist mixers in youth hubs Bushwick and Williamsburg, and in the Upper West Side for those over 30. In the meantime, singles will have to keep parsing political signifiers on dating apps.
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Pavano, who appeared in the 2023 short film Shatter, added a voiceover in which he made a series of pretentious nonsensical statements about genetics. Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad campaign has debuted to strong reactions from fans and financial markets leading comedian Michael Pavano to spoof it to plaudits from his audience In the voiceover, Pavano mocked the overt double meaning of the phrases jeans/genes in a parody of the American Eagle ad campaign. 'Jeans are passed down from parents to us, often determining traits like your hair color ... and even eye color,' Pavano said. 'My jeans are blue - so they're like, better than yours. They say people with blonde hair and blue eyes, their nature is favorite. I don't say it, but they do - but I buy it. The vapid and hypersexual monologue was a clear lampooning of the ad campaign centered around the A-list actress that had been garnering controversy in recent days over a potential double meaning of the phrase jeans. He continued: 'I mean, who wouldn't want my jeans? I know you do, you dirty boy. Let's be so real. Tight blue jeans from American Eagle is the only denim I'll put on my body - and it's not just the denim that's tight.' Pavano said in the skit, 'This pair of blue denim is clinging to me for dear life ... I like it when they stretch super wide and slide right in - I mean on. 'They hug all the right places - and some very wrong ones.' The viral clip was mocking American Eagle's autumn advertising rollout, which has the tagline, 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.' In a series of images, the Spokane, Washington-born beauty - who is set to play boxer Christy Martin in an upcoming biopic already garnering Oscar buzz - is seen modeling a variety of denim-based ensembles. In an accompanying video, Sydney is seen buttoning up her jeans as she muses: 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour... my genes are blue'. A second advert sees the camera pan down Sydney's chest as she models a plunging denim jumpsuit. She muses: 'My body's composition is determined by my genes...' before exclaiming: 'Hey, eyes up here' as the camera cuts back to her face. The advert has divided fans, however, with one critic calling the clip 'one of the loudest and most obvious racialized dog whistles we've seen and heard in a while.' The phrase 'great genes' is 'historically used to celebrate whiteness, thinness and attractiveness,' which it said made 'this campaign seem to be a tone-deaf marketing move,' a Salon report on the backlash read. Taking to social media, many expressed their shock at messaging - which they aligned to Nazi propaganda. Outraged fans penned: 'So Sydney (& American Eagle) somehow expect audiences to not interpret this visual as a euphemism for eugenics and white supremacy?' 'The Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad campaign is just modern day Nazi propaganda. Like it's wild how blatant it is. Things are weird right now, man.'; 'the most nazi part of the Sydney sweeney add for me was the use of the word offspring'; ''Jeans (Genes) are past down from parent to offspring' 'My jeans (genes) are blue' 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans (genes)' Nothing is ever a coincidence, this is eugenics'; TikTok named Angie under the handle @vital_media_marketing then reviewed the ad and pointed out what she felt were problematic elements with the underlying message. Angie said: As it's panning up her body and on her face and her features, she's literally talking about her family tree and the genetics that have been handed down to her, her blonde hair and her blue eyes, and how great they are.' Angie said that 'praising Sydney Sweeney for her great genes in the context of her white blonde hair, blue eye appearance' makes for 'one of the loudest and most obvious racialized dog whistles we've seen and heard in a while.' Many people panned the tone of the ad campaign on American Eagle's Instagram page, as one user quipped, It's giving "Subtle 1930's Germany."' Another user echoed, 'Close enough, welcome back 1930s Germany.' One person said the promotion 'is what happens when you have no [people] of color in a room ... particularly in a time like this. 'This ad campaign got so caught up in this 'clever' play on words and this stunt the ppl in the room missed what was so blatantly obvious to anyone not White. I'd expect this from Abercrombie… but not yall.' One user wrote of the promotion featuring the surging star, 'This is such a f****d up campaign' while another called it 'weird as hell.' Others vented about the message they felt the campaign inherently sent, as one said they were 'never shopping at AE again' while another asked the fashion house, 'What are you doing???' One Instagram user speculated, 'This has to be rage bait,' while another suggested the clothing retailer 'read the room…' in reference to the current campaign. Another user asked, 'Who on your marketing team said this was a good idea.' The advert has divided fans, however, with one critic calling the clip 'one of the loudest and most obvious racialized dog whistles we've seen and heard in a while.' Yet many were quick to defend Sydney, branding the backlash 'unhinged'. They shared on X/Twitter: 'I'm not sure how to say this nicely but if you think a jeans ad with a pun about Sydney Sweeney being pretty is a nazi dogwhistle you genuinely need to put the phone down for a while.'; 'everyone is seriously reading too much into this and y'all need to go take a hike or something because sydney sweeney is literally just promoting jeans, not 'nazi propaganda''; 'The claim that Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad is pro-eugenics because of a 'good genes/jeans' pun is genuinely unhinged. It's a denim campaign, not a manifesto. Not every blonde with blue eyes is a Nazi. Some of you need a history book — and a nap'; 'You guys don't have to like Sydney Sweeney or the ways she promotes herself but don't you think comparing those Jean commercials to nazi propaganda is a tad extreme?' Daily Mail has reached out to reps for Sweeney and American Eagle for further comment on the story. Sweeney said in a July 23 news release about the fall campaign: 'There is something so effortless about American Eagle.' She said of the clothier: 'It's the perfect balance of being put-together but still feeling like yourself.' Sweeney said in a July 23 news release about the fall campaign: 'There is something so effortless about American Eagle – it's the perfect balance of being put-together but still feeling like yourself' In terms of the charitable aspect of the ad campaign, American Eagle Outfitters is working with Crisis Text Line in an effort to provide grants for mental health support and crisis intervention The Euphoria star continued: 'Their commitment to creating pieces that make you feel confident and comfortable in your own skin is something that resonates with me. 'It's rare to find a brand that grows with you, the way American Eagle has for generations.' The Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood actress wrapped up in saying, 'They have literally been there with me through every version of myself.' American Eagle Outfitters president Jennifer Foyle opened up about the ad campaign, which is slated to raise money for domestic violence charities, in the news release. 'This fall season, American Eagle is celebrating what makes our brand iconic – trendsetting denim that leads, never follows,' Foyle said. 'Innovative fits and endless versatility reflect how our community wears their denim: mixed, matched, layered and lived in.' The fashion executive explained why Sweeney made for the perfect focal point of the promotion. 'With Sydney Sweeney front and center, she brings the allure, and we add the flawless wardrobe for the winning combo of ease, attitude and a little mischief,' Foyle said. In terms of the charitable aspect of the ad campaign, American Eagle Outfitters is working with Crisis Text Line in an effort to provide grants for mental health support and crisis intervention. Proceeds from a special edition of The Sydney Jean will be donated to the organization. Among the related grants include a $100,000 Signature Grant posted this past February 2025 in an effort to expand programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
