Post-pandemic loneliness is driving young US adults to apps like Discord and Reddit to make friends; users say seeking friends as adults still carries stigma
Tatum Hunter / Washington Post : Twitter: @pkedrosky , @tatum_hunter_ , @abhabhattarai , @tonyajoriley , @nataliemj10 , and @yunheekim22 Twitter: Paul Kedrosky / @pkedrosky : Americans are lonelier than ever, and are struggling to make friends in a world where openly seeking friendships is stigmatized and everything is mediated by online services. Loneliness is taking friend-making apps mainstream https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... [image] Tatum Hunter / @tatum_hunter_ : NEW: Young adults told us making friends IRL is getting harder. Apps like Bumble BFF and Meetup fill the gap during bouts of loneliness. But actively seeking friends as an adult still comes with shame and stigma, they say. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Abha Bhattarai / @abhabhattarai : Post-pandemic loneliness is driving young adults online in search of platonic relationships. “That is, if they can get past the perceived embarrassment of asking for friends.” by @Tatum_Hunter_ https://washingtonpost.com/... Tonya Riley / @tonyajoriley : One of the things I would (will?) miss about Twitter is how many friends I've met here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Natalie Jackson / @nataliemj10 : not a post-pandemic phenomenon. I made some of my best friends by joining a https://meetup.com/ group 10 years ago. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Yun-Hee Kim / @yunheekim22 : Loneliness is driving young people to seek friends more intentionally online. Latest from @Tatum_Hunter_ https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
This story closes a loop that opened in 2021, when the Wall Street Journal documented dating apps being repurposed for platonic friendships as time spent on Bumble's BFF mode surged. What was then a side behavior has become the main event: the Washington Post reports young adults now treat Discord, Reddit, Bumble BFF, and Meetup as primary friend-making infrastructure, while admitting that openly seeking adult friends still carries stigma.
The commercial backdrop explains why platforms care. Match Group has watched paying users decline for seven straight quarters as users chase organic ways to meet (The Guardian), pushing Bumble, Muzz, and Match Group to market friend-finding and community products at fatigued daters (Financial Times). Meanwhile, chat apps have already proven the demand for smaller-scale belonging — creators were building intimate groups on Discord, Geneva, and Telegram back in 2022 (Washington Post).
First-order effects
- Discord and Reddit capture engagement from young adults who once defaulted to dating apps for social connection, validating the friend-mode products Bumble and Match Group launched to offset their dating declines.
Second-order effects
- Match Group and Bumble face pressure to make friend-finding a first-class product line rather than a tab inside a dating app, since users are going straight to Discord and Reddit instead of routing through dating brands; personal CRM startups like those profiled in 2019 gain a larger addressable audience of people formally managing friendships.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the 'social app' category re-segments: general-purpose chat communities absorb the friend-discovery role dating apps tried to own, and the stigma the Post documents becomes the key adoption bottleneck platforms must design around rather than a marketing afterthought.
The trend: Friendship is becoming a product category of its own, migrating from dating-app side features toward community-first platforms like Discord and Reddit as post-pandemic loneliness reshapes how young adults seek connection.