When you think of a “meet–cute,” what pops into your mind? Maybe it’s Hugh Grant spilling his orange juice on Julia Roberts on a London street in Notting Hill. Maybe it’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel bonding over The Smiths in the office elevator in (500) Days of Summer. Maybe it’s even Cinderella, in Cinderella, entering the ball and locking eyes with her prince. (That one seems less likely, but, hey).
Odds are, you’re thinking of your favorite romantic comedy. You’re thinking of a scripted cinematic moment, because the beauty of a meet–cute is just how perfectly imperfect it is. And if you’re Gen Z, you’re probably not thinking about an interaction between people you know. That’s not to say that people can’t meet their partners cutely in person in 2026, but these perfectly awkward in–person moments somehow feel like artifacts of the past. We are children of the digital age, so to find romance, we’ve turned to the only tool we all know how to use—the internet.
Hinge, Tinder, Instagram—none of these are necessarily bad ways to meet your partner. But they’re not meet–cutes. In fact, the nature of the internet makes it fundamentally antithetical to the philosophy of a meet–cute. When you like someone’s Hinge profile, you’re making an informed decision based on a wall of headshots and quippy lines. When you swipe up on someone’s Instagram story, you have an entire highlight reel of curated posts at your fingertips. One could argue that you can meet–cute in a shadowy chatroom, but that’s not the same thing either. Anything digital misses out on that first spark of in–person connection; the raw chemistry of eye–fucking someone you immediately find attractive; that excited feeling after you exchange numbers and go about your day with a bounce in your step and butterflies in your stomach.
As with so many elements of our life, we have one thing, yet we crave another. Amid a recent and unsurprising pivot by younger generations away from technical innovation and towards analog media lies a smaller, more hopeful desire to seek spontaneity in our online web of algorithms and connections. These rom–coms from the ’80s and ’90s reflect a pre–internet era of romance, without dating app paywalls or height filters or follower counts. Younger generations seem to crave the perceived authenticity of these romantic encounters from a time when finding love really seemed as easy and natural as running into a cute person on the street, and they have found ways to recreate these moments outside the more high–brow cinematic space.
Tiffany Baira is one of those pioneers. The creator and host of Love Train and Street Hearts, Baira has capitalized on a niche in dating media; she pairs up strangers that she (seemingly) finds on the street and brings them through a few rounds of questions, such as “How many people have you said I love you to?” and “Where’s the wildest place you’ve ever hooked up with somebody?” In Street Hearts, participants are often blindfolded, and sometimes they’re coaxed into initiating physical contact … more so than they would on a typical first date. Baira, an excellent host, makes her guests feel comfortable and staves off the natural awkwardness of the situation. She also offers the Love Train couples an out at every stop on the subway by asking if they want to get off or keep going, and the viewer at home quietly cheers when they both opt to stay.
The use of social media to sell a romantic ideal begins to naturally highlight the tension between reality and performance. These creators are selling audiences the romance that they want, and unlike the producers of rom–coms, they make it seem attainable, relatable, normal. It’s a New York street. It’s a dirty subway car. You’ve been there, or can imagine going. It feels less like a highly–produced television show and more like a manual that the viewer could potentially follow in their own life, invoking a more personal sense of longing than something like The Bachelor.
Whereas rom–com make clear that their love stories are fictionalized for entertainment, Street Hearts and Love Train seem to indicate that if you’re in the right place at the right time, and you’re willing to go on camera, the same kind of romance could happen to you.
It’s easy, then, for the showbiz–y details to be obfuscated: The participants are all good public speakers and around the same level of attractiveness. Many are other influencers, appearing on the show partially to promote their own social media brands. Even the conversations feel sanitized, shiny—the awkwardness that movie dialogue often scripts on purpose is washed away. If you’re someone who wants your own meet–cute, these shows find the sweet spot of real people and ideal chemistry. This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially for the entertainment quality of the videos, but our feeling of closer proximity to these contestants makes it easy to forget that this is packaged content, not a perfect reflection of reality.
As our intrigue in new technological innovation starts to wane in the face of hypercapitalist existentialism, the online dating landscape may be shifting too. Where technology was once meant to broaden our dating horizons, to tailor our algorithms and requirements so that we’re no longer bound to the people we find in our immediate vicinity, the same narratives that persist about how true love should be found may act as a hindrance to innovation. There’s still that craving for spontaneity. Wouldn’t it be nice to just meet someone without knowing anything about them, and see where it goes from there?
Baira also understands that the strongest appeal of her product is in the potential energy that’s set up just before the cameras turn off. What comes next for that cute gay couple that met on the street? The shows know this, and they use it. It’s not an accident that practically all of Baira’s couples end up opting for a second date as they’re cheered on by happy commenters. Unlike how most of reality TV sells drama and mess and intrigue, Baira sells a brand of targeted hope that keeps her viewers coming back for more.
Whether contestant or consumer, if you still believe that reality TV is realistic in 2026, that’s on you. People will always construct these false realities of love, and they will always find participants and audiences for their creations. But even the media–literate still struggle to remember the difference between reality and content when social media continues to shrink the margins of the two. Above all, if you’re looking for love, you want to believe that it’s possible. Something like Love Train simply feels more real than When Harry Met Sally… or Romeo + Juliet. That could be your neighbor, your high school friend, your single aunt. I actually did see an ex–coworker on Street Hearts once. And if it could be them, who’s to say it won’t one day be you? Just keep watching. Just keep scrolling.
Baira is not doing anything wrong by producing and hosting a fun, entertaining TikTok show that people enjoy; at a certain point, it’s on us to create the circumstances that will lead to an actual meet–cute. And, look, maybe technology still can provide spontaneous love. Maybe two people will fall in love in the comments of a Street Instagram post. Stranger things have happened! But if you’re really craving a truly out of the blue, right–place–right–time connection, maybe it’s time to put Instagram reels down and venture out into the world.
