Why Do People Like Street Interviews About Love So Much?
Alia Masud and Natasha Dhar are 19- years-old college students. They are hometown best friends who both go to college in separate cities. Masud attends New York University and Dhar attends University of California, Berkeley. Dhar decided to visit Masud in New York City for a weekend. They were hanging out at Washington Square Park when Masud suddenly spotted Carter conducting an interview. Masud recognized him from TikTok. Dhar hadn’t seen any of Hopeless Romantic Society TikToks at all, but wanted to be interviewed.
“I didn’t know where this would be seen, but I tried to be as truthful as I can be because he was really, like, warm and welcoming,” Dhar said.
Hopeless Romantic Society is a New York City based TikTok account that does street interviews where the topic is what many people want and desire: love. The account has over 500,000 followers on the platform, and their most watched TikTok has 9.7 million views. J.C. Carter, 24, is the person behind the account. Hailing from North Carolina, he came up with the concept last November.
“The very first thing was I wanted to create a platform where people could see something and not feel alone,” said Carter. In his TikToks, he is welcoming to the people he approaches. Hopeless Romantic Society’s most popular video is him encouraging a girl to say hi to whoever she thinks is the cutest person around her because she told him that she makes up relationships in her mind. “It really is like me trying to go out and allow people to tell their stories and be heard for the very first time if they have ever been,” Carter says. “In these kinds of ways, they become seen as more human.”
With people adjusting to life returning to normal post-pandemic, romantic love is one aspect of life that people are finding hard to obtain, which is why people are watching TikToks street interviews on love because it’s relatable and helpful to hear others’ experiences with love. Due to TikTok being such a popular platform with over 70 million users, it makes sense why people are seeking this type of content on the app. Seven-in-ten single U.S. adults say that their dating lives are not going well this year. Data from a Pew Center survey revealed that most singles think that dating is harder than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Francesco Ferrari is a Psychology Professor at NYU and created the course called Love Actually, where he teaches about the development and concepts of love and intimacy through various lenses such as culture and neuroscience.
“People have a desire to experience love, be loved, and to love others. I feel like it’s a very universal phenomenon that people can relate to and people are intensely curious about love and relationships,” he said. “I think TikTok is just the latest phenomenon but we have seen this forever since people have been able to talk and communicate about things.”
Dhar and Masud are featured in two TikToks videos on the Hopeless Romantic Society page. The first one is them discussing why they are single and the red flags they ignore in people. In the TikTok, Masud mentions that Dhar has “historically low ass standard,. ‘’, when it comes to finding potential partners which is the reason why she is still single.
“He traveled to Miami twice in the same year and went to Atlanta as well.” she said when discussing the in-clings of the red flag about her old crush. Masud and Dhar’s vulnerable and honest answers come across as genuine in the TikTok videos.
“Since I already made the decision to be in the video, which is something I wouldn’t normally do,” Masud says, “I was like I might as well be honest and I think I was being a little too honest.”
This is something that Ekene Onukogu looks for when she is watching TikToks. Onukogu is a 18- year- old college student at NYU. She likes to watch street interviews that focus on love because they provide a sense of reliability for her and watches a few for 5 minutes almost everyday.
“It makes me see how other people think about love. It makes me think, am I alone in feeling this way? And usually I am not, so it comforts me in that way and brings me peace,” Onukogu says, “Watching these street interviews [about love] makes me desire it more because the people seem so genuine while talking about it. It makes me want to put myself out there and find someone that likes me for me.” Finding love is hard especially after a global pandemic, so knowing that there is someone out there who has also liked a person that was “for everybody” makes navigating finding romantic partnerships a lot less stressful.
Ferrari understands why Onukogu and others feel that way when watching street interviews about love. Love is one of the most powerful emotions a human can have and feel. So when someone like Onukogu watches someone talk about love in a random street interview, sometimes it makes them want to experience love.
“To maintain health, we really need to have loving connections with other human beings,” he said. “Love is critical for health and well-being for both mental and physical health.”
Humans naturally desire romantic love, but it comes easier to some people than others. TikTok algorithm shows street interviews about love to people who want to see that content. That’s why accounts such as Hopeless Romantic Society are continuing to gain popularity. As long as humans are interested in what others have to say and TikTok remains in demand, it’s unlikely that this phenomenon won’t go away anytime soon.
Carter sees himself as a curator to help the people in New York City share their story and experience with love through TikTok. He is currently expanding the Hopeless Romantic Society platform to YouTube and eventually wants to turn it into an advice column in the future.
“I just want this to be something that people can feel like they have a part of and I often referred to hopeless romantic society as us because we are all kind of Hopeless Romantic Society,” Carter says, “ We all are trying to learn and live and grow.”
