Seniors Julia Ryan and her fiancé, Adam Kroeze, stand in front of a banner celebrating their engagement. The couple met at Pepperdine and got engaged on Valentine’s Day of their senior year. Photo courtesy of Julia Ryan.
In the age of curated feeds and crafted captions, deciding just how to debut a relationship online is the new norm.
For Pepperdine students Julia Ryan, Lola Herning and Fiona van Otterloo, the choice between a “soft launch” and a “hard launch” has become something of a social media rite of passage.
“I think it’s [sharing relationships on social media] a great thing,” Herning said. “As long as everyone feels good doing, then I think it’s a great way to connect with others.”
Hard Launch
Ryan said her recent engagement marked not just a major life event, but also a deliberate hard launch.
Ryan has been with her fiancé, senior Adam Kroeze, since their first year at Pepperdine. For the past three years, they have dated seriously. So while Ryan said she knew a proposal was coming eventually, the exact timing caught her off guard. On Valentine’s Day, Kroeze invited her to watch the sunrise by the shore and popped the question.
“I had no idea it was going to be that day,” Ryan said. “It was really sweet, but I was in sweatpants, totally unsuspecting.”
After the big question, Ryan said she had another, but equally important, one: How would she share the news?
Ryan opted for a hard launch. After calling a few close family members and friends first, she turned to Instagram the next day with a post that read: “the rest of my life with you? yes please!” The post featured a picture of her and Kroeze beaming with bright smiles and a ring on Ryan’s left hand held up with pride.
Seniors Julia Ryan and Adam Kroeze show off Ryan’s engagement ring. This picture was included in the Instagram post that hard-launched their engagement. Photo courtesy of Julia Ryan.
“I simply wanted to tell everyone all at once,” Ryan said.
Finding a perfect balance between slowly easing a relationship online and fully sending it is what most couples have begun to treat as a skill.
A soft launch might include a subtle photo of a cropped partner or a vague caption — leaving people asking, “Whose arm is that in the corner?” or “Who bought her those flowers?”
A hard launch, on the other hand, leaves no room for questions. It’s sharing the news with no deniability and without warning.
For Ryan, the choice felt natural, as she said she is accustomed to posting everything in her life on social media. This news was some of the most exciting for her to share, and the responses were overwhelming in the best way.
“I had a lot of people texting me the next day; I had to sit down and respond to people who were texting me for two hours or maybe more,” Ryan said. “So many people just saying, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy.’”
That ability to efficiently tell masses of people updates on your life is one reason why hard launching has become so appealing — as well as having a little bit of fun with the initial shock.
Because of that, Ryan said she is in favor of the approach.
“I love transparency on social media,” Ryan said. “That’s kind of what you have it for, to show what’s going on in your life.”
Soft Launch
For first-years Herning and van Otterloo, their approach looked different from Ryan’s.
Like Ryan and Kroeze, Herning and van Otterloo said they met in the first semester of their first year at Pepperdine and have been together for five months now.
First-year students Lola Herning and Fiona van Otterloo embrace at the Getty Villa. The couple said they chose a soft launch approach to their relationship, slowly telling those who didn’t already know online. Photo courtesy of Lola Herning.
Those closest to the couple were aware of their relationship, so the soft launch route was more about telling those on the outside.
“All our closest friends already knew,” Herning said. “So it was more slowly telling random people we weren’t as close to or people from back home.”
Their soft launch phase didn’t last entirely too long, with matching Instagram stories well past plausible deniability posted on Thanksgiving. The pair said they loved playing coy on social media at first.
“We were excited for the little, cute, soft launch photos,” Herning said. “Even if it only really lasted a couple of weeks, we tried to have fun with it at first.”
Being a queer couple, it was easy for people to overlook their photos as merely friends. That is when the soft launch shifted into something more intentional.
“That [unintentionality] was something that we began to try to avoid, because I’m proud of dating her and I’m proud of being queer,” van Otterloo said.
Despite efforts to clear confusion, for some, it still goes over their heads, even though van Otterloo said she sought to make it clear that her and Herning weren’t just friends anymore.
“Even though our photos online are very obvious that we’re dating now, still people overlook it, especially as very feminine-presenting women,” van Otterloo said.
While Herning said she thinks the soft launch approach is fun, she also thinks it can only last so long.
“I wouldn’t wanna hide my partner, and I feel like when it goes on for a while, it’s like, ‘Why aren’t you proud to share your person?’” Herning said. “If you’re dating someone, chances are they’re gonna be a big part of your life, and the point of social media is to share elements of your life.”
Herning and van Otterloo’s experience highlights what soft launching can offer at its best. It was a way to enjoy the early stages of their relationship while controlling how gradually others found out.
Though, their story also shows the limits of subtlety — what began as fun eventually felt closer to concealment.
For some, like Ryan, her hard launch was an extension of her excitement and served as a way to celebrate with everyone at once. For others, like Herning and van Otterloo, a soft launch offered a buffer before making things unmistakably clear.
The art of the launch will likely cement its place in modern relationships.
“Social media is supposed to be fun, and so are relationships,” Ryan said. “Have fun trying to find a place where those overlap, whether it be sharing a little or a lot.”
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Contact Addison Thomas via email: addison.thomas@pepperdine.edu