| Good morning. Sometimes it's necessary to step away from the crazy news cycle and ask the really important questions, such as: "What's it like to go on a date during a pandemic?" Glad you asked. Today's newsletter is a special edition Brew exploring the changing nature of dating and relationships in the coronavirus era. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday...hope you enjoy! | | | |  | NASDAQ | 12,755.64 | - 0.07% | | | | S&P | 3,709.41 | - 0.35% | | | | DOW | 30,179.05 | - 0.41% | | | | GOLD | 1,886.80 | - 0.19% | |  | 10-YR | 0.946% | + 0.90 bps | | | | OIL | 49.08 | + 1.49% | | | *As of market close | - D.C. Congress passed a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through Sunday. Lawmakers will spend the weekend trying to put the finishing touches on a coronavirus relief package.
- Covid: The FDA granted emergency use authorization to Moderna's vaccine (it already approved Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine last week). The first shots could come as soon as Monday.
| |  Vladimir Gerdo\TASS via Getty Images | We Brew writers spend a lot of time crafting a business newsletter that's informative and non-face-meltingly-boring. Which means a lot of us are single. And when the pandemic hit, we weren't sure if it was okay to keep swiping—or what we'd do if we found a promising connection. Nine months in, we still don't have clear answers. So we asked around A new Morning Brew/Harris poll found that many of you are using those thumbs like the Lord intended, and we don't mean hitchhiking: - Of respondents who had dated online before, more than two in five (42%) say they're doing so more now compared to before the pandemic.
- Apparently, quarantine can be the perfect time for romance—though not for everyone. 59% of respondents say they will be dating less once the pandemic is over, but 41% say they will date more.
- We're similarly polarized on the topic of dating FOMO. 44% say they feel a great deal/some anxiety about losing time to pursue dating during the pandemic, but 56% feel none/not much anxiety about it.
So what does a pandemic date look like? Those we polled said the ideal Covid-safe first date would involve meeting at an outdoor location (39%), video chatting virtually (35%), and staying socially distant with masks on (31%). Bottom line: "The dating game in COVID is all screen and no scene," said Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema. "While 40% are using dating apps more, 44% have anxiety over lost time dating in real life. Look for a dating boom when the vaccines reach the singles as almost half plan to date more once the pandemic is over." | |  Giphy | Throughout the pandemic, dating app users starved of human interaction have been video chatting, swiping, and pickup-lining like they're Tom Hanks in Castaway. - The top 20 dating apps have gained 1.5 million daily active users this year, according to Apptopia data from November. That's a 180 from the before times, when downloads for the top 15 apps were actually shrinking globally.
Users are active, active Video chatting on Bumble spiked 93% in the pandemic's early days, while the average conversation length on Tinder rose 10%–30%. - And yes, people are tapping the pandemic for pickup lines. OkCupid reported a 188% increase in coronavirus mentions on profiles between January and February.
But business has been meh: Match Group, the owner of Tinder, Hinge, and PlentyOfFish, initially struggled to convert higher engagement into dollars. Average revenue per user stayed flat early this year, partly because users were less inclined to splurge on premium features if they knew the prospects of an in-person date were slim. Bottom line: Like WFHing, online courtship is likely to stick around even after the pandemic subsides. A survey conducted by Helen Fisher, the chief scientific adviser to dating site Match, found that 69% of survey respondents who participated in video chat dates said they would continue to do so. | |  Giphy | Looks like Baby Yoda scratched the itch for many prospective parents. Brookings researchers estimate 300,000 fewer births in the U.S. next year. Okay, maybe the pandemic and accompanying recession are a better explanation. The think tank found that a 1% increase in unemployment correlates with a 1% decrease in births, and ongoing school/daycare closures could drop births further. Other variables weighing on parents: - Reduced access to reproductive services
- Fears about coronavirus affecting a fetus
- Being home with children 24/7 (sounds mean, but if we had to spend the pandemic with our 13yo selves...)
- Reduced sexual activity (see above for why)
At the company level, baby product manufacturers are already seeing sales hits, and some are trying to develop premium products to offset losses. At the macro level, this could skew the future workforce toward older people. The Covid-19 baby bust won't only "doesn't only depress overall productivity, but it also puts a burden on social insurance systems," Brookings Senior Fellow Melissa Kearney told Business Casual. Zoom out: Health and economic scares have caused birth busts before, including after the Great Recession, Hong Kong's SARS outbreak in 2013, and the 1918 Spanish flu. | |  | We wanted to demonstrate the collaborative power of Quick Base for you this holiday season, so we decided to collab on a little holiday jingle. Here it goes… ♫ "It's the most wonderful time of the year, With year-end reporting And everyone telling you get into gear!" ♫ We'll stop right there. That was about as painful as the reality of year-end data reporting and patching it all together through a bunch of different systems and spreadsheets. Quick Base makes managing complex processes much, much easier. Their whole mission is to unleash the creativity of everyone by uniting business & IT teams to innovate every day. Whether it's core administrative processes, working sales leads, managing projects, onboarding new employees—really anything holding your business back right now—Quick Base is the ultimate tool for collaboration. Jingle all the way to better, more agile operations with Quick Base. | |  Prince Williams/WireImage | Cardi B's buying those Balenciagas that look like socks with a cool $8 million check from OnlyFans. The rapper reportedly makes that amount every month by posting behind-the-scenes content from her life to the platform, where admirers pay a monthly subscription fee for access. Once known exclusively for NSFW content creators, OnlyFans has been flooded by celebrities who went looking for a new revenue stream when concerts, studio production, and other forms of live entertainment were put on pause. That and would-be daters seeking intimate connections have led to a pandemic-era boom for the company. - Creators on OnlyFans will generate more than $2 billion in sales this year, Bloomberg reports. The platform's cut? Twenty percent, or $400 million.
- What's even more mind-blowing are the profits. Of that $400 million in revenue, OnlyFans will make $300 million in profit, per The Information.
For comparison: The sales generated by OnlyFans creators equal what creators on Patreon—another fan-fueled subscription site, but without the edgy reputation—have earned in all seven years of the platform's existence. Bottom line: The rise of creator-focused platforms like OnlyFans and Patreon (and also Substack and Cameo) is yet another trend accelerated by the pandemic. Similar to other big shifts in the entertainment industry, it boils down to getting content from creators —> consumers with the least amount of friction. | |  Giphy | Yesterday, we asked you to share your quarantine-era dating stories. Some made us laugh, some made us cry, and others made us go, "Hmm, didn't know masks could be used for that." Here are our favorite responses: "As I approached, the guy walked up to me and hugged me...the date was over at that moment in my mind." Read the entire thing: "In May we met on Tinder and shortly thereafter started texting on WhatsApp. In October we had a video chat, but we didn't say much, mostly just stared at each other. I bought her a plane ticket and last Thursday we met in Cabo San Lucas. We both returned home after the most incredible week of our lives. We are in love and have decided to pursue a long-term relationship. This all may not seem too unusual until you consider the fact that she is from Colombia and only speaks Spanish while I am from Los Angeles and only speak English. We use translator apps on our phones to communicate and we practiced each other's languages together every morning." "I literally haven't touched another human being in over eight months." "Our first date was socially distant (meeting in a park for drinks). We really clicked and time passed super quick. Everything was great until I realized there aren't any bathrooms in the woods or natural segues to try and find one. And because we just met, neither one of us wanted to end the date because we had to pee. So we both were just suffering for hours because we were vibin'." "Did a virtual date for the first time. When the girl turned on her camera, I saw for a quick glance what was at least 50 crushed up Mountain Dew cans on the floor by her bed. I tried not to think anything of it until the conversation turned to what our favorite drinks were. To spice things up I said my favorite drink was Mountain Dew...she didn't bat an eye and proceeded to tell me she doesn't really drink soda. The call ended about 5 minutes later when I told her I can't date a liar." "First kiss was through two masks...three months later and we're in love <3." For more pandemic dating stories, check out the Social Distance Project. | | - Tesla stock hit an all-time high before it begins trading in the S&P 500 on Monday.
- The Fed announced it'll allow top U.S. banks to resume share buybacks in Q1 2021.
- CD Projekt Red said it would refund customers who bought its hyped but buggy game, Cyberpunk 2077, up to Dec. 21.
- How will Joe Biden respond to the suspected Russian cyberattack?
- VP Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence publicly received Pfizer's vaccine yesterday. Joe Biden and incoming first lady Jill Biden will do the same on Monday.
- Meet Tai Lopez, the exec giving new life to fallen retailers.
| | | Pucker your ears up, buttercup. Bose QuietComfort® Earbuds are the world's most effective noise cancelling earbuds, with adjustable noise cancellation and six hours of battery life. Hear tunes exactly as your fave artists intended. Get the best sound around with Bose earbuds.* Forget fees. With no fees at all—no annual fees, late fees, or foreign transaction fees—and up to 3% Daily Cash back on all purchases, Apple Card has everything you want in a credit card and nothing you don't. Apply in less than a minute here. Terms apply.* It's complicated: Love, Actually's web of connected relationships, visualized. How to: Dry clean your clothes at home (kind of) + a Brew favorite we've shared before about tying scarves. Weekend conversation starters: - Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? What about Lord of the Rings (because it has elves)?
- A wholesome Q: What's your favorite yuletide memory?
- Is KFC's Colonel Sanders really wearing a bowtie? Or is he just a tiny man?
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