Hinge launched its no-swipe app with an animated Dating Apocalypse escape

Hinge was rebranding and relaunching its app with the swiping feature removed entirely — betting that real connection beats the swipe culture Vanity Fair had named a 'Dating Apocalypse'.

A hapless hero who swipes at real people escapes a carnival of dating rides — Cycle of Loneliness, Catch a Catfish — through a door into Hinge world.

An 18-strong the STUDIO team animated a parallel-universe story — the dysphoric world of compulsive swiping versus idealized Hinge world — performing the characters with a real couple, adding nods to iconic film romances, plus memes, GIFs, videos, a trailer and a press-kit gift box mapping the carnival.

No results were reported; the campaign served as the public unveiling of Hinge's rebrand and its new app with the swiping feature done away with completely.

In October 2016 Hinge unveiled its rebrand and new app with 'The Dating Apocalypse', an animated campaign playing on the term Vanity Fair coined the year before for a dating scene crippled by swiping apps. The new app completely did away with the now-commonplace swipe.

The STUDIO, a New York digital production company, built parallel universes: a dysphoric world of compulsive, unfulfilled swiping — the hero swipes his hand in front of potential love interests instead of speaking — and the idealized Hinge world he escapes into, where a girl snaps him out of his dating daze. Rides like Cycle of Loneliness, Catch a Catfish and The One Nighter literalised app-era miseries as tongue-in-cheek carnival attractions.

Eighteen artists worked from July through launch, recording a real couple to capture the characters' subtlety, with Hinge's team suggesting nods to iconic film romances — Hinge CBO Katie Hunt was, by the STUDIO founder Mary Nittolo's account, moved to tears at one review. The film ran to Heart's 'What About Love', alongside social content and a press kit.

The villain was not a competitor but the interaction model itself — swiping — which the new app had actually removed.

Borrowing Vanity Fair's 'Dating Apocalypse' gave the story cultural currency audiences already recognised.

The carnival rides literalised dating-app miseries with tongue-in-cheek confidence instead of product claims.

Casting a real couple to perform the characters gave animation the subtlety of lived body language.

Naming the culture that is broken — and building your product as the exit from it — lets a launch film do the positioning without a single feature bullet.

The campaign went live at thedatingapocalypse.com, supported by memes, GIFs, videos and a promotional trailer, plus a press-kit gift box containing a full map of the Dating Apocalypse carnival and a ticket to "Escape the Games and Find Something Real". The film doubled as both the unveiling of the rebrand and the launch of the app that had done away with swiping.