Life
Content creators are taking the communities theyve built online into real life and helping their followers find friends.
In 2022, Ali Jackson went on a 35th birthday trip to Colombia with seven of her closest friends.
Jackson normally posts about dating under the monikerFinding Mr.
These people know a lot about me, Jackson remembers thinking.
I know nothing about them.
Inan op-edfor theNew York Timesin April of this year, U.S.
Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared an epidemic of loneliness, one that had been brewing long before COVID.
Other creators skip the middleman, likeMaria Avgitidis.
She has been hosting different versions of retreats since 2012, all of which are run through her company.
As a matchmaker, my job is not just to help people find love, she says.
I think its just to help people find their people, and that might be also in friendship.
Internet celebrities now walk the Met Gala carpet alongside actors and singers.
Even your mom probably follows a few influencers by now.
The first step for any TrovaTrip is to have the creator survey their community to ensure theres enough interest.
But its also not purely a vacation.
And it was not like that at all.
They hung out with us the whole time.
There isnt anything I didnt do, she says.
And so everyone who went on the trip, I Googled them and I double-checked.
She also kept the trip as women-only.
None of the hosts I spoke to needed to turn away a guest for security reasons.
Instead, their main concern became whether everyone would mesh one that would turn out to be unfounded.
No one touched them, in a good way.
Its like youre meeting a friend of a friend, right?
Plus, creators like Jones and Jackson have cultivated communities around specific interests and activities.
Because Jones makes content about books and writing, her Japan itinerary included multiple bookstore stops.
Right away, everyone hopped in to take photos of each other for dating profiles, Skogstad says.
It was just a really fun atmosphere and that happened really naturally.
The influencers themselves are not always the biggest draw.
I was like, I can’t do this, she remembers.
I dont know if I can be alone.
I feel so weird.
I had this goal that when I was 25 that I would do that.
(She turned 25 this year.)
Still, the relationship between host and guests was one of the biggest question marks hanging over the trip.
But she says that never was a problem probably because the attendees were just as nervous about that relationship.
Thats something that I wanted to be mindful of on the trip, Skogstad says of Jacksons Greece getaway.
Letting her maintain the space that she wants to with any of us.
It wasnt until the end that some of the travelers asked Jones to sign copies of her book.
Skogstad remembers one time when she, Jackson, and the rest of the attendees were sharing a meal.
This is so funny, she said to Jackson.
I still tear up thinkingabout the posts that people were doing after the trip, Jackson says.
Even I have made two really good mates, they live down the road, she says.
And weve been really close since we’ve been back.
Im like, Oh, Ive got friends out of it too.
You kind of just see them more as a human, I guess, D’Alessio says.
So there’s less of this like, Oh my God, its so cool.
I’m like, Ah good for her!
This article was originally published onSep.
