It’s another day, and you are doom-scrolling through your socials. You decide to open Instagram and look through people’s stories when you see a photo of two hands holding. You go through someone else’s story in which you see a girl and a guy, but the guy’s face is hidden.
If you’ve seen this but aren’t sure what it is, it’s way more common than you think. In the past, people would post their relationship statuses as an “update” on apps such as Facebook, or just a picture of their significant other as a main post. So what is a soft launch?
Popularised in the past few years and coined by Gen Z, it’s a way to reveal your relationship with social media in a more lowkey way. In which you reveal to others that you are taken, but you don’t reveal who you are with. Why might one do this? A multitude of reasons: privacy, not being ready to reveal who they are with, just wanting to acknowledge they are in a relationship, something casual, aesthetics, or anything else!
Over time, soft launches do turn into hard launches. What’s the difference? Well, a hard launch is just putting out a picture of your significant other, whether solo or together, so everyone knows you are specifically with this person.Â
Now, why are soft launches more common compared to a hard launch? It comes down to our generation. Whether we like to keep our personal things private and not put them on blast online, or just are not comfortable with posting, even following the trend of “curated mystery.”
In an era when our lives are largely lived in the digital front window, the soft launch serves as a protective layer. It allows us to reclaim a sense of autonomy over our romantic lives. By posting that blurry silhouette or the “two coffees on a marble table” shot, we are signalling a milestone without inviting the immediate scrutiny that comes with a hard launch. It’s a way of saying, “I’m happy,” without having to answer the question, “So, who is he and what does he do?”
Let’s be real: the digital footprint is permanent, but modern dating can be fleeting. A hard launch feels like a legal contract; if things go south, the “Great Feed Purge” of deleting photos is a public admission of a breakup. The soft launch is low-risk. If the spark fizzes out after three weeks, you don’t have to explain why the guy from the beach photo disappeared because, technically, he was never “officially” there.
Beyond the fear of commitment, there is the aesthetic side. A soft launch is inherently more editorial. It fits the Pinterest-inspired, candid aesthetic that dominates Instagram today. So many people’s soft launch pictures are inspired by Pinterest. Some are grainy, flash-on photos of intertwined hands that are simply “cooler” than a posed, high-definition portrait. It suggests a life lived rather than one performed for the camera, even if the soft launch itself is the ultimate performance.
Whether it’s about privacy, protecting your peace, or just keeping your followers guessing, the soft launch is the definitive relationship rite of passage in the digital age. It’s the “coming soon” trailer for a movie we aren’t quite ready to premiere yet. The next time you see a stray elbow or a mysterious watch in a dinner snap, you now know it’s a display of a relationship.