A new interview project running on social media, d8talk, follows a diverse group of young Gen Z New Zealanders over the next six months as they share their experiences (the good and the bad) of dating in Aotearoa. We talk to co-creator Georgia-May Russ (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Uekaha) about the project and the biggest surprise she found when it comes to Gen Z and dating.
As a millennial (sorry), there are many words that have been used to describe our attitudes towards dating and, well, none of them were good. Perhaps because we were raised on romantic comedies, but reality always seemed to be a bit of a let-down for my cohort, going through the ups and downs of dating.
But if there’s one thing that Gen Z has never had the luxury of, it’s being fantasists. When it comes to politics, certainly when it comes to the environment, this is a generation that’s always had to look reality square in the face. But, as a new interview project that’s profiling young people and their dating habits finds, maybe that’s a good thing?
“The thing that surprised me most about Gen Z and dating is just how self-aware they are,” says Georgia-May Russ (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Uekaha), the producer and co-creator of d8talk. “I went into this project expecting to hear about the chaos of modern dating – ghosting, situationships, the doom scroll of dating apps – but what I found was something deeper. There’s an emotional intelligence in this generation that caught me off guard. They not only understand the systems they’re navigating but are actively questioning them, challenging them, and in some cases, outright rejecting them.”
d8talk is a social media project that follows a diverse group of young Gen Z New Zealanders over the next six months as they share their experiences (the good and the bad) of dating in Aotearoa. Launching on Valentine’s Day, there are short videos with the participants on every dating-related topic under the sun, including dating types (one woman says all the men she has dated look like the rat from Flushed Away, which is an incredible visual) through to more complicated topics like the impact of neurodivergence, religion and more on trying to date.
“The Idea was mostly the brainchild of our director, Joe Canham. Having lived in Queenstown for the last few years – being a largely transient area where people come and go seasonally – he was interested in hearing about other people’s dating experiences in big cities, rural areas and across the entire motu,” Georgia says.
It also really interested Georgia, who is one of the rare people who managed to find her soul mate early on – they met as teenagers 14 years ago and have been married for six years. “My interest peaked in discovering a world that I’ve never had insider access to, outside of supporting friends during difficult dating times.”
They did an open call out for NZ young people aged 18-24 and Georgia says once they had the participants, they opened the project right up. “Over the year the project grew and shaped itself into being more of a conversation around love, identity, relationships and experiences – the participants really took the topic and made it more multifaceted and in-depth than simply ‘That One Bad Date’.”
A big topic of importance was what it is like to date rurally – something that a lot of the dating conversation doesn’t always cover. “Dating in rural communities comes with its own set of challenges. The pool is smaller, the stakes can feel higher, and there’s often a level of visibility that makes things complicated. In big cities, if a date goes wrong, you move on and you’ll likely never see that person again. But in a small town? You’ll run into them at the supermarket, at the pub, at your cousin’s wedding,” Georgia says, before noting that one of her previous ‘situationships’ ended up a guest at her own wedding.
Dating can also feel very different in a small town, she says, because a unique interplay between tradition and modernity. “Some people are embracing new ways of connecting, while others feel stuck between expectations and reality. With this project, we really wanted to get a broad range of views – and although most of Aotearoa’s population resides in cities, many of us grew up elsewhere. It would’ve been limiting to base our exploration purely on cities – we would’ve missed out on the ‘bigger picture’.
As someone who found the dating pool in Auckland too small, I’ve nothing but sympathy for people using dating apps in small town New Zealand. And, yes, Georgia says she expected a fair share of frustration with dating apps, but she said she was surprised by a greater sense of frustration around dating itself.
“Gen Z knows exactly what’s happening—they can break down the psychology of situationships, the importance of communication, and the exhaustion and disposability of dating apps. But rather than just accepting it, a lot of them are trying to reframe how they approach love and connection. Some are leaving apps altogether and meeting people in more intentional ways.”
This is really a generation that has also got to better grips with mental health and boundaries, she says, which can only be a good thing to understand so early on in your life. “They’re also deeply aware of their own emotional patterns and trauma, which is something I don’t think previous generations had the same language for. It’s not that dating is easier for them, but they’re navigating it with a level of self-awareness that I found really refreshing.”
Overall, Georgia hopes that the project – which runs for six months – helps people feel seen, no matter where they are in the country and where they are in their own dating journey.
“In my late teens and early 20’s, the conversation around dating was incredibly siloed. There was expectation around everything – when to first kiss, when to make love, when to get married, when to break up – and I think that having access to wider conversations would have been a great way of being able to understand that these journeys are individual, and there is no ‘right or wrong’ way to approach life. There’s a lot of noise out there about dating, but at the core of it, we all just want connection. If d8talk can help people feel less alone in that experience, then it’s done its job.”
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