Mediated Sexual and Romantic Learning on TikTok: The Dating Wrapped Trend

The Dating Wrapped trend on TikTok takes inspiration from Spotify’s annual Wrapped event where Spotify users are presented with their year-end listening statistics. Dating Wrapped repackages fundamental components of Spotify’s Wrapped—a focus on aesthetics, PowerPoint-like presentation of information, and quantification of personal experiences—but does so in the context of interpersonal relationships as a dating year-in-review video on TikTok. This article applies a content analysis and critical thematic analysis to 54 TikTok videos with the hashtag DatingWrapped as a way to understand how sensemaking about sexual and romantic relationships occurs when individuals create content centered around self-disclosures of intimate experiences. Ultimately, we argue that trends such as Dating Wrapped provide opportunities for personal expression among emerging adults who use TikTok, the efficacy of which is enhanced by attention to data visualization within its presentation format. Second, TikTok trends centered around interpersonal relationships may influence the formation of sexual and romantic identities through processes of mediated learning about relationships.