Words: Soha Mostafa (she/her)
In a moment of procrastination, I find myself lost on Instagram, scrolling through my feed, catching up on the lives of old friends. I click on a story or two, and before I know it, I’m completely immersed in the endless OOTDs and brunch photos.
A picture catches my eye—a friend of a friend is having coffee. But there are two mugs on the table. Her iced caramel macchiato sits beside a chai latte, joined by a mysterious hand. She’ll post again and I’ll spot the bottle of Dior Sauvage on her vanity or the glimpse of an arm across the table of a romantic dinner. Another “soft launch”: the Internet’s new way of introducing your partner without really introducing them. Gone are the days of posting happy couple selfies. Now, you can capture a sliver of someone’s shoulder, a piece of their hand, or even just a watch, and the job is done.
In the same way businesses use a soft launch to test a new product before fully releasing it, people use the “relationship soft launch” to subtly hint at a partner while gauging friends’ and family’s reactions. The approach is meant to be not only discreet but intriguing; sparking curiosity whilst preserving privacy. Sure, it makes some of us wonder who this new romantic interest is, but most of all, it leaves you thinking—“Does she think she’s Kourtney Kardashian?”
Everyone wants to know about a celebrity’s love life. From tabloids to fans online, people are constantly wondering what star is using Pete Davidson as their rebound. The appeal of the celebrity soft launch seems pretty obvious—maintaining the privacy of a relationship whilst still being able to take elusive photos of you both. A soft launch also satiates public curiosity, keeping fans engaged. But why has this method of announcing a relationship trickled down to the average person’s Instagram page? In a world where our Instagram accounts are our scrapbooks, where we feel the need to display the most significant parts of our lives, why do we hide our romantic relationships from full view? Has the modern day dating landscape, rampant with situationships, no labels, and non-committal arrangements, instilled a fear in us to share our relationships? Perhaps we are afraid to show off our relationships online because we’re afraid of what this new romance might hold, forever on unstable footing. There isn’t much point in making a public spectacle of something that might implode any day.
A soft launch allows us to reap the validation that comes from hinting at a new fling but without the commitment of fully “announcing” anything. We still get the same acknowledgment, approval, and affirmation from the people on our socials we so desperately desire. Modern dating may have made us cautious, yet we still want a taste of the attention that comes with sharing our lives.
The business terminology we use to define how we portray our relationships on the internet is just further proof we live in a world where social media is used to commodify ourselves. Instagram forces us to market ourselves to our peers, making a human to human relationship a commodity in its own right. Soft launch, hard launch, taken off the shelves, rereleased. We are brands, and our personal relationships are our products.
And while we might pretend that we don’t care about other people’s relationships—that we scroll past their feeds without a second thought—the truth is, we notice. We recognize that familiar arm across the table, the extra drink on the table, or the shoes in the corner of the photo. We can say it doesn’t matter, that we’re too busy with our own lives, but the minute we see that couple from school unfollowing each other on Instagram, we can’t help but text our mates about it.
So here we are, formulating relationship teases with the precision of a marketing stratagem, all to keep our followers on their toes. A just-about-conspicuous hand pouring an aesthetic bottle of natural wine is constructed in shot as meticulously as a product launch. We’ll pretend it’s about privacy or “keeping things low-key,” but there’s a narcissistic aspect to the thrill of the double-takes, and the inquiring DMs. Soft launching: a way to give just enough to keep people guessing, all while staying one vague story post away from saying, “Oh, that was never official.” Because in the end, we want everyone to know we have someone… Just not who or for how long.
