Emily Parris is an open book about her life — online and off.
While going through a breakup, Parris, 28, from Denver, started watching TikToks about how people were coping with their own heartbreak — and eventually, finding the courage to go on dates.
“I was really surprised at the community that was like ‘Oh, I just went through a breakup too, it’s so nice to have someone check in,’” Parris, @emmmyparris on TikTok, tells TODAY.com. “Then we all kind of just started dating again at the same time so it felt like we were going through it together.”
Toward the end of summer 2021, she began posting "Get Ready With Me” videos before dates and followed up with updates about how things went.
She posted roughly 400 videos and gained over 35k followers during this timeframe — but eventually, deleted all of her dating-related videos in December 2022.
"Everything was a red flag, everything was gaslighting. I was starting to allow those types of narratives to impact the way I saw guys," she says.
"I would say on a video that I had a great date and casually mentioned, 'Oh, he was 10 minutes late, but he texted me five minutes before saying that he was going to be late' and everyone would say, 'Oh, that's a red flag,'" she adds.
Ironically enough, it wasn't until she took things offline that she was able to find a fulfilling relationship.
While documenting their dating lives on TikTok has its upsides, Parris and other content creators are learning firsthand about the downsides that come with sharing the ins and outs of their love life — with strangers on the Internet.
People find comfort in sharing their dating lives with others
#Dating has racked up more than 65 million views on TikTok.
Sure, some of these videos are simply bits of relationship advice, but there are also tons of videos where creators seek help picking out first date outfits, give a play-by-play once they're home and even share recordings of the actual dates (sometimes without the permission of the other person).
Liz Mina, 24, from Los Angeles, feels empowered sharing her dating journey on TikTok. She started posting videos as a way to update her friends, but soon enough, she realized they caught on with complete strangers.
“Women who ranged between like college to even early to mid 30s were telling me that they were really intimidated by the dating space and first dates scare the hell out of them and watching my videos sort of makes them feel like they’re doing it with me,” Mina tells TODAY.com
“So, I figured if I could sort of help women take control of their dating lives and feel empowered dating, that’s kind of what motivates me to keep doing it,” she says.
Mina typically posts 12 videos a week, of which only five percent are dating recaps. So far, she's gone on dates with 11 different men in 2023, sharing all the details for her following of about 3,700 and counting.
“The people who follow me love to hear a cute story,” Mina says. “I’ve posted two bad date stories that have gotten a lot of attention, but there were bad date stories from years ago and not actual date recaps.”
In one TikTok, she debriefs a date with "The Snake" (Mina comes up with nicknames for all of her potential suitors) where they split crab ragu at one of her favorite Thai restaurants. Another time she breaks down one of the worst dates she's ever had. "From the moment I start talking to him, it's like he's mad at me," she says in the video.
Daniel Bennett, 27, from Los Angeles, flips the script and records unscripted conversations with his friends, peppering them with questions about their latest dates.
“The format that I’ve taken with it is like it allows me to tell people’s stories without greenscreens or pictures or whatever may make people feel a little bit uncomfortable," Bennett tells TODAY.com.
An expert weighs in on the harms of posting your dating life online
While you're free to share as much or as little as you want online, posting too much about your dating life online can keep you from building a healthy relationship.
"It's starting out without any form of trust or decency," Janika Veasley, a licensed marriage and family therapist, tells TODAY.com. "If you expect me to go home with you or build with you and I find out you're recording the date, I can't trust anything that comes from your mouth, or anything you do at that point."
In short, "the most basic aspect of a date has been violated."
Posting about a date — whether in a positive or negative light — may get in the way of the goal at hand: finding love. "Doing it online just feels like it's for attention than actually trying to build a connection" Veasley adds.
The creators of @2nicks1hinge, who asked for their last names to be omitted, faced this dilemma themselves. The 23-year-olds — both named Nick — go on a double date, then post videos with footage from before, during and after the date.
One time, their dates questioned their intentions, asking if they were being used purely for content. "We didn't think these would be seen by anyone but our friends, so we didn't even think about it. But then once those videos took off it felt like everyone in Boston our age saw them," they tell TODAY.com.
Another concern: The person posting is in need of validation from others, according to Veasley.
Although Parris publicly said her job at a political consulting firm was to blame for the reason she stopped posting Tiktoks, the truth is that she noticed a change in how she viewed herself — and her dates.
Over time, she was letting people's opinion's impact her own. "They’d say I was too picky or that I was one to talk. Other comments led me to believe that some people didn’t really care about the updates or my dating life; they just needed a place to dump their opinion,” she says.
Sometimes she felt like people wanted to see her "fail" — and although it affected her, she understands why.
"I even feel that as a consumer of media, I get attached to people’s stories, the family lives they share. I think when you allow people to look into your life, it’s easy to feel like they know you and vice versa," she says.
This begs the question: How much is too much?
TikTok creators struggle to understand the limit of what they should — and more importantly, shouldn't — share.
Mina is aware of the fact that there are minors on TikTok, which is why she's careful to never say the word "sex."
"I might explore in the future talking about it, but for now, I completely avoid it. Sometimes I allude to it, I talked about like a physical connection, but I never talked about like any sexual experiences or anything like that just because I tried to keep it relatively PG-13," she says.
"But I would say like I'm honest about everything else, there's really nothing that I hide besides like physical intimacy," she adds.
One thing seems to remain constant among creators: keeping the identities of their dates private. Even so, Parris encourages others to reconsider sharing any details at all.
"I think that it's really hard to forget, or it's really easy to forget that other people want to keep that aspect of their life really private," Parris says. "I felt conflicted because I don't need permission from anyone to share my life, but it's also not just your life your sharing — you're sharing someone else's."
Her advice: Take things slow. "Film the video and then don't post it for a day or two. Think about it because once it's out there, you really can't pull it back."
