When Will and Jada Pinkett Smith announced that they’d separated earlier this year, it was done in a way that felt totally at odds with what we’ve come to expect of celebrity break-ups. Rather than doing the typical announcement post, Jada wrote in her memoir that she and Smith, who were married in 1997, have in fact separated and have been living “completely separate lives” for seven years. According to her, the pair are “still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership”.
The Smiths aren’t the only celebrity couple who’ve eschewed the typical break up-announcement, instead opting to separate in relative secrecy. Other celebrities who’ve chosen to stealth split include Meryl Streep, who recently announced that she’d broken up with her husband six years ago. These anti-break-up announcements are far more discreet than the performative posts we’re used to seeing from celebrities. They’re stealthy, they’re lowkey, and ultimately, they’re more chic.
It makes sense that celebrities would want to avoid the tidal wave of publicity that comes with announcing a split. And, as with all celebrity culture, the shift has begun to trickle down to influencers and even to us average normie posters. After a lifetime of oversharing on the internet, we’re moving away from the impulse to broadcast our relationship status online. Isabella Kathrine Duffy, a 22-year-old influencer, used to fill her feed with #couplegoals posts. “I wanted to prove we were together and that we were happy,” she says. It is something she now regrets. “It made the break-up so much messier, because [my followers] got emotionally invested in it… it was like they knew us, and knew everything about the relationship,” says Isabella. Now in a new relationship, she’s made the decision to keep it private, in order to save herself from ever having to go through a public break-up again.
But Isabella’s choice to keep her relationship off the feed is not an unpopular, or even an uncommon one. A report by creative agency ZAK suggests social media users under 30 are moving away from Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat to smaller, private communities – such as on WhatsApp and Discord – where they feel more comfortable being themselves. When it comes to a break-up, why post your Ls to all your followers when you could just let your inner circle know?
Coco Mocoe, who hosts Ahead of the curve with Coco Mocoe – a podcast dissecting internet phenomenons and trends – suspects that people might be more hesitant to post about their relationship online because of growing concerns over their digital footprint. “It’s part of why we’re seeing soft launches as well,” says Coco. “People are afraid of having to explain when and if it goes wrong.” Gen Z is known for keeping their personal life offline more so than millennials, so it’s no surprise many of them are choosing to keep their romantic life off the grid.
As Coco sees it, there is a growing weariness among a generation who’ve been made to live out their entire existence online. “I think they have a lot of resentment,” says Coco. “Their way of rebelling is to have this air of irony – like, ‘I don’t actually want to be here’.” Instead of performative break-up posts and feeds which appear heavily curated with couple shots, people would rather appear “nonchalant”. “It’s almost like a generational betrayal to show up and try really hard online,” says Coco. The desire to appear unbothered online is at odds with the kind of earnestness we’re used to seeing in break-up announcements, which typically speak about having ‘kindness’ and ‘mutual respect’ for one another moving forward. In today’s online climate, such statements feel increasingly inauthentic and meaningless.
Still, looking effortless and nonchalant online requires effort. More subtle relationship announcements – whether it’s a soft launch, deleting all traces of a relationship off the grid or unfollowing an ex – can sometimes feel just as performative as a break-up post. For influencers, in particular, teasing their relationship status to their followers isn’t necessarily about protecting their privacy, but another way of generating viral attention. Alix Earle, for instance, has spent months hinting about her new boyfriend, referring to him as ‘nfl man’ and hiding his face in photos. This hasn’t afforded her anymore privacy, rather, it’s had the opposite effect by encouraging speculation around the relationship to build and build until there’s a hard launch.
The decision to not post about a break-up doesn’t just reflect a shift in how we live our lives online, but towards romantic relationships in general. Research has shown that Gen Z aren’t prioritising establishing committed romantic relationships the same way previous generations once did. Meanwhile, other studies have shown that they value friendship more than they value romantic relationships. Isabella says that by not posting her relationship online, her feed feels more authentic. “I don’t feel like I need to prove anything on the internet,” she says. “And I don’t think [posting about my relationship] adds anything to my content.”
There’s also a sense that we shouldn’t need to define the relationship to our followers. “The lines between an acquaintance, a friend, a romantic partner, a sexual partner, a life partner – they’re all different for everybody. And there are some people who have platonic friends or platonic relationships that are kind of romantic,” says Rachel Wright, a sex and relationships expert. Rachel sees it as a positive thing that we are “allowing people to design their own relationships” – and to not be held to a certain standard of what a relationship should look like. This embracing of grey areas, and reluctance to see relationships as having a defined beginning, middle and end, might explain why more people are choosing not to go public with their relationships or making a big deal of their break-ups.
For a generation who value fluidity in relationships, posting about a break-up can feel risky. We’ve been conditioned to share every aspect of our lives online, so it can be freeing to realise that we simply don’t need to post our Ls. In a post-break up announcement world, we can begin to recognise relationships as messy, blurred and complicated – and not something that can be summed up in PR-friendly platitudes.