Austin Scholar #145: Your son needs help dating
& how AskElle bridges the gap
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Your son needs help dating: How AskElle bridges the gap
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
I unfortunately have to admit that Stanford final exams are incredibly challenging – and not necessarily for the right reasons.
You’d think that if the professors give you practice tests that the actual exam would be similar, right?
That was not the case with any of the initial math classes this quarter. The question formats were also not like anything we’d seen before, which was frustrating. But I’ve never really had to deal with things like this before, so the entire experience has been a good lesson.
On a happier note, I’m back in Austin and have already visited my favorite places and spent a ton of time with my friends and family. And speaking of my family, my sister and I worked together to write this week’s combined anecdote and article on her incredible Masterpiece, AskElle.
Your son needs help dating: How AskElle bridges the gap
Parents: if you’ve ever been worried about your kid’s dating life, this newsletter is for you.
Since the dawn of time, the teenage years have served as a training ground for learning the basics of dating and connection.
Proms, dances, as well as car culture and drive-in movies, provided opportunities for dating to become a normalized social activity for teens.
In the 1950s, over 70% of high school students dated regularly and, according to the American Sociological review, most teens went on dates either weekly or monthly.
But now, the story has changed.
45% of men ages 18-25 have never asked out a girl and 63% of men under the age of 30 are single.
This is insane, especially when compared to life 50 years ago, when over 75% of men weren’t just not single, but were married by the age of 30.
This epidemic is way more damaging than you might believe. Take it from me, a teen who is not only experiencing this firsthand, but who also has 200K TikTok followers and 50K users on my app where teens are constantly giving me insight into their dating life.
Parents: if you aren’t actively trying to change this future for your son, you’re stunting his maturity and contributing to an entire generation being unprepared for adult life.
What do I mean by this?
Well, research has shown that “contrary to widespread skepticism, romantic experiences also appear to be positively related to qualities of romantic relationships in later life.” Basically, you can predict the success of your son’s adult relationship based on whether he asked a girl to the movies in high school.
Further, “high quality adolescent romantic relationships have been linked to a range of psychosocial benefits including general competence, self-worth, self-esteem, and social support, positive commitment in early adult relationships and higher quality early adult relationships, and fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors.” These are skills and qualities so much harder to develop in purely platonic relationships.
If romantic relationships are really all that great for your sons, then why have they – and an entire generation – moved away from them?
While the problem began with the introduction of social media into the teen dating landscape, COVID-19 exacerbated the problem. All relationships moved online and teens haven’t gotten back in-person since.
Now, I’ve given y’all a lot of statistics, but I think you’ll be more convinced by a look into your son’s experience.
Before we get in too deep, let’s start with something you’re well aware of: prom. Specifically, asking a girl to prom. While you might think that it’s the same as it’s always been when you see your son posing next to a girl in their prom photos, but I’m sad to say that you’re being deceived. Today, prom is treated as a photo op where groups of friends pair up without any romantic intention. There’s actually a high likelihood that your son has not spoken to his date before the photo.
Let’s say they did know the girl before prom – chances are, they’re in a situationship (noun: when two people like each other but feel they aren’t ready to commit). While this word might be uncommon to you, it’s very well known amongst Gen-Z. Situationships lead to teenagers having romantic and sexual experiences without learning the life skills teen dating is supposed to teach.
How might these situationships start? On Snapchat: an app designed for easy sexting. Yep, that’s the app mediating your teen’s first relationship. For the parents that don’t know, you can add and message anyone on the internet with Snapchat. Let me paint a picture of the average interaction:
Your son will scroll in his “quick add” (a list of people who you have mutual friends with on Snapchat) and pick a girl who they think looks hot based on her Bitmoji and add her.
His first message to this girl will be the following letters: WYLL.
Take a guess at what that means. No, it’s not a pickup line or a show of interest.
No, WYLL stands for “what you look like”.
The girl is then expected to send a collection of photos of herself, and your son will then decide if he wants to block her or keep messaging her.
This phenomenon is so widely relatable and hated on by girls that any mention of it in a TikTok video is sure to go viral.
I like to call this being a “WYLL warrior” and it’s singlehandedly ruining your son’s ability to actually ask a girl out and meaningfully connect with her.
This is just a small glimpse into the world of teen dating today, but I hope you can see from this alone that something needs to change.
But unfortunately, the biggest problem with all of this is that parents can’t help their teen because they don’t know what's going on and how to help. When I excitedly squeal to my dad that the boy I like just “saved my Snap in chat” or “liked my Instagram story,” he stares blankly at me.
As a teenager myself, I knew I had to do something. That’s why I created my app AskElle, a safe teen dating advice app that helps them build back the social skills they have lost.
Let me break it down:
Why AskElle?
The core feature of the app is a chatbot that is trained on insights from leading teen psychologists, dating experts, my TikTok content, and also the thousands of DMs I get from teens asking for advice. I also have a panel of moms who vet everything the bot says to ensure it’s safe and valuable information for teens.
The ability to talk to the AI bot is extremely helpful because teens are more likely to talk to a third party than their parents.
Teens trust it because it speaks their language – it is being constantly trained on all of the new dating-related vocab.
There are two other features of the app I would like to highlight:
The Crush feature
This feature allows you to input your crush and they will then receive a text message saying “someone from *insert school* has a crush on you” and if they use the app and input you as their crush, you will match! But even if they put someone else in, the world won’t end. AskElle will never notify your crush that you were the one to put their name down.
The top reason teen boys aren’t asking out girls is a fear of rejection – that’s why I developed the only way for teens to ask out their crush without risking rejection. This feature is thus step one in getting teens to get over their fear of rejection. It will show your son that telling a girl they like her isn’t too scary.
The Ship feature
This feature allows you to “ship” two of your friends, which basically means setting your friends up on a date because you think they’re compatible. There is also a leaderboard for each school where you can see the most popular “ships” for your school.
The aim of this feature is to make dating social again and to get teens to think critically about compatibility (as you have to input a reason for “shipping” the two people into the app).
But Elle, how do we know this actually works?
Well, I started this whole thing by posting dating advice on TikTok.
I went from 0 to 100K followers in just six weeks, and not because I’m some expert in TikTok virality, but because I was telling teenagers what they needed to hear. Now, I have over 200K followers and receive hundreds of DMs daily from desperate teens asking for my help, which is what led me to creating my app.
AskElle received 50K downloads in the first two weeks of launching and has gone TikTok viral.
Teens are actually engaging with the app and seeing real results in their dating lives.
I’m getting DMs from boys saying that they had a crush on a girl, but didn’t know how to make a move, and that it was AskElle that gave them the confidence and skill set to confess to her and to navigate a real relationship.
AskElle has the potential to drag your son (and every teenager out there) out of the loneliness and toxic relationship epidemics and show them that they don’t have to be a “WYLL warrior” forever.
Parents: if you want your kid to learn how to have a real relationship and ensure their developmental success, have them download AskElle.
Elle is also looking for experts to validate what she’s talking about or to get on a 15-minute call with her to discuss AskElle.
Contact her through email: ellekristine6@gmail.com
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
I’m sad to say that our failing education system is not only affecting kids. The adults that have gone through the system are also suffering. Some data from the most recent report card:
34% of adults don’t know as much math as a primary school student.
The US is 14th globally in literacy rates.
Problem solving skills in the US are below the international average.
The gap between the highest and lowest performing adults is increasing: “There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills,” said Peggy Carr. “Over time we’ve seen more adults clustered at the bottom.”
Clearly, something needs to change.
The Eras Tour made up such a significant part of my life – I watched probably twenty live streams of different shows, obsessed over surprise songs, and talked about it with my friends for hours and hours – so I’m terribly sad to see it end. I am, though, truly inspired by Taylor Swift and everything she’s been able to accomplish. She breaks record after record and it's an honor to be a fan of hers. I hope to grow to be more like Taylor – dedicated, gritty, kind, and a great writer.
As challenging as this season of my favorite show was to get through, I must say that it was all worth it for this episode.
For those of you who don’t know, Survivor is a reality TV show where contestants must survive on an island (they have to build a shelter, make fire, scavenge for coconuts and fish, etc.) all while building strong relationships with the other contestants so they don’t get voted off of the island.
In this episode, there were seven players left in the game: five players in an alliance (ironically called the Underdog alliance) with two players on the bottom (not in an alliance and likely to get voted out). In a bold strategic move, one player in the Underdog alliance (Andy) struck a new alliance with the players on the bottom, and completely changed who got voted off the island. It's too complicated to explain, but the move was bold and brilliant.
However, this episode reminded me of the most important takeaway from the game as a whole: never give up, no matter how hopeless it may seem. There is always some creative, novel solution or workaround to what you’re going through.
Thanks for reading. Go crush the week! See y'all on Sunday.