The Verge and The Cut Partner on Seventh Season of Land of the Giants Podcast – About the Multi-Billion Dollar Dating App Industry

Land of the Giants, the Vox Media Podcast Network’s award-winning narrative franchise, today announced the launch of its seventh season, Dating Games. Marking a collaboration between two of Vox Media’s editorial brands, The Cut and The Verge, the six-episode series will examine the multi-billion dollar dating app industry and explore whether the business goals of the companies behind them are aligned with users’ romantic aspirations. Hosted by Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz (senior staff writer, The Cut) and Lakshmi Rengarajan (host, Paired by the People), the season will feature interviews with the founders of apps like Tinder and Bumble, Match Group executives, as well as former Tinder engineers, data scientists, neuroscientists, psychologists, app users, and more. The first episode is out today, and available here. 

“Last summer, New York polled thousands of daters about their habits, horror stories, and what they’ve learned from a decade of using dating apps. I spoke with hundreds of them,” says Singh-Kurtz. “Almost everyone felt burnt out by the apps, and almost everyone blamed themselves, but after nearly a year of reporting this series, we can confidently say daters aren’t the problem — the apps are.”  

“I’ve often said, ‘It’s not the existence of dating apps that we should worry about – it’s their dominance.’ What do we lose as individuals and a society when dating apps become the default way to find a relationship?,” says Rengarajan. “I’m excited that Sangeeta and I will be shedding light on this industry and how it’s fundamentally changed us, so that people will be more informed as they choose whether to download or delete.” 

Land of the Giants is Vox Media’s narrative franchise about big technology and its impact on our lives. In previous seasons, the show has told the stories of companies like Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google, and unboxed the evolving world of food delivery. The trailer for Land of the Giants: Dating Games is available here, with the first episode out today. Listen to the trailer and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to receive new episodes automatically. 

About Land of the Giants: Dating Games: In this season of Land of the Giants, The Verge and New York Magazine’s The Cut trace the evolution of the multi-billion dollar dating app industry. Hosts Sangeeta Singh Kurtz and Lakshmi Rengarajan delve into users’ burning questions, from the functional – like how the apps’ algorithms affect your matches – to the sociological, like “Why does dating feel broken?” Episodes will cover the business models of the leading apps, the upstarts and niche platforms that are angling for a share of the market, the measures that users take to gain control over their dating app destinies, and how the future of dating is being shaped by the lessons of today’s dating app marketplace.

About Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz: Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz is a New York-based journalist. She’s a senior staff writer at The Cut and New York Magazine, and a contributor at Architectural Digest, A24, and more. She was previously a writer for the global business publication Quartz, where she reported on technology and culture.

About Lakshmi Rengarajan: Lakshmi Rengarajan has spent over a decade building ways for people to meet others beyond the dating apps, first by reimagining the singles event.  Starting as a leader in the in-person dating space, she was then recruited by Match.com as their Director of Event Design. After Match, she went on to become WeWork’s first Director of Workplace Connection to build actual strategies and tactics to address the changing nature of work relationships. Her podcast Paired By The People takes a look at the forgotten art of the set-up. 

About the Vox Media Podcast Network: Named by Adweek as 2021’s “Hottest in Podcasts,” Vox Media Podcast Network has over 150 active shows featuring industry-leading editorial voices and storytellers from Vox Media’s networks and beyond. From daily news and tech to culture and sports, and talk and interview shows to rich narrative storytelling, the Vox Media Podcast Network is one of the largest, fastest-growing, and most topically diverse collections of premium podcasts. Learn more about the Vox Media Podcast Network here.