Across campus, QR-code flyers cling to lampposts and crosswalk poles. One reads, “Are you looking for a 6-foot-2 nerd to drop off flowers for you?”
The code leads to Ditto, a new matchmaking platform that uses artificial intelligence to match students and even plan their dates. It is one of several digital spaces USC students turn to as they navigate a dating culture shaped by ambiguity, performance, and carefully managed vulnerability.
As the birthplace of Tinder, USC has long been associated with casual dating. On the surface, campus dating looks detached and carefree — hookups, situationships and a culture built on pretending not to care. Social media reinforces the image as students share dating horror stories on anonymous platforms like Sidechat and TikTok jokes declare, “How to lose a guy in 10 days? Go to USC.”
But talk to students, and the same half-laugh, half-sigh appears.Something unspoken hangs in the air: Do not be the one who cares more. Do not want too much. And absolutely do not ask, “What are we?”
It is a question many describe as a fast track to embarrassment.
Senior finance major Yolanda Yang put it more sharply.
“Here, the bar is below hell. It is in lava,” she said.
Junior business major Gia Oseguera agreed.
“USC is not where you come to find your boyfriend,” she said. “I thought I would meet my husband here, but the reality is just hookups and confusion.”
Despite the cynicism, students are still searching. New apps keep emerging on campus. These include dating platforms like Cerca, AI matchmakers like Ditto and anonymous confession spaces like USC Missed Connections or Sidechat. All of them promise to bring people together.
So with all these resources, one question remains: If the apps keep multiplying, why does the dating scene still feel so…cooked?
“Dating apps make it easier to set up dates, but they also give you something to blame if things go wrong,” said Mallory North, a senior cinema major. “You can blame the app instead of yourself.”
According to Karen North, a professor of digital media psychology at USC, none of this is accidental.
“It was tough to get college students to use dating apps at first,” she said. “Tinder lowered the average age of dating-app users and made it cool for college students.”
Tinder’s fast rise was propelled by USC Greek life, with its marketing inspired by frat party-planning strategies from co-founder Justin Mateen’s time in Alpha Epsilon Pi, according to Vox
But Tinder did not just spread. It fit seamlessly into a USC culture already obsessed with image.
“At USC, students grow up around influencers and opinion leaders,” North said. “They know how to present themselves, and that mentality transfers directly onto dating apps.”
According to North, this image-driven mindset turns profiles into another form of self-branding.
In a culture where presentation functions like social currency, emotional detachment becomes a strategy rather than a personality trait. Showing genuine interest feels less like an attempt at connection and more like exposure, North said.
In this environment, expressing interest also becomes a calculated act.
“It is classic self-handicapping,” North said. “If things do not work out, you can say you never tried.”
North said the likelihood of miscommunication on dating apps only magnifies the confusion. Digital communication strips away social cues such as nodding, eye contact and tone. Without these signals, students overthink how they come across and work harder to refine their image.
“You get none of the real human reactions online,” she said. “So people act differently. It is not more honest. It is just different.”
These complexities amplify when social systems come into play. USC is a Greek-life-dominant school, something that James Havenhand, an exchange student from England, noticed.
“It just seems like it all ties back to frat culture. I would say most people meet people through that,” he said.
And for students within the system, the dynamic looks even more complicated, filled with its own hierarchies and unspoken rules. Maria El Tom, a senior international relations major and member of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, said students has also heard rumors of Greek-life-exclusive dating apps aimed at “top-tier” houses. The idea reflects how status-driven USC’s social ecosystem can feel, she said.
“It makes people not want to settle down because they feel like they have access to so many people,”El Tom said. “People think they have an unlimited pool.”
Optics matter, she said — sometimes more than interest.
“If a guy is in a top fraternity, he is probably not going to date a girl from a lower-ranked sorority,” El Tom said. “People act like it does not matter, but it does.”
Some women opt out altogether.
“I basically only date international guys now,” Oseguera said. “USC men just have a reputation. International guys treat you better.”
While Greek life shapes much of USC’s straight dating culture, queer students describe challenges rooted not in excess options but in a lack of ways to meet each other.
“There are a lot of queer students here, but there is not a common space where we meet,” said senior communications major Jesse Siegel. “People kind of stick to themselves, so dating apps feel like the only option.”
The same emotional detachment can appear in these spaces as well.
“No one wants to seem like they need anything,” he said. “You want to look put-together, even when you are literally going on a date.”
This desire for clarity and the lack of organic connection across social groups push people toward digital alternatives, students said. While many traditional apps reinforce ambiguity, Ditto markets itself as the opposite.
According to sophomore legal studies major Angella Ferrer, who manages USC marketing for the platform, students like Ditto because it removes the guesswork.
Unlike traditional swipe apps, Ditto presents one match at a time. Rejection is handled quietly by the AI, sparing users the emotional risk.
“It reduces the emotional risk,” she said. “You are not putting yourself out there alone.”
Even as Sidechat jokes call the app “Black Mirror for love,” Ditto’s growth suggests something deeper.
“Even though the dating scene feels cooked, students still want real love,” Ferrer said. “They are still trying.”
Amie Leadingham, a master certified dating and relationship coach, says USC’s culture of detachment is deeply psychological.
“We struggle with vulnerability,” she said. “Most of us were never taught how to communicate our needs. So we play it cool.”
Fear of rejection, she explained, keeps students in situationships longer than they should.
“People are afraid that if they say what they want, they will lose the person,” she said. “But not saying anything keeps them stuck.”
In a campus shaped by image, branding and digital performance, USC students have mastered the art of looking unbothered. But the popularity of dating apps tells a different story.
Behind the curated personas is a campus full of people searching for the same thing. They want a connection that feels real, clear, and safe enough to claim without a QR code.
And at USC, that might be the hardest match to find.