This study examines how the digital affordances of Tinder shape the (hetero)sexual scripts of young womxn. Findings indicate that while Tinder alleviates the boundaries of an on-campus hookup culture, the app has yet to completely rewrite the sexual and romantic scripts of young adults. Instead, participants describe the development of a hybrid hookup script. This multilevel script reintegrates traditional dating scripts, which are absent in an on-campus hookup culture, while maintaining the expectation of a hookup. Yet, not all participants enacted the hybrid hookup script to the same extent. Facing a lack of same-race matches and compounding racist and sexist interactions, womxn of color were overrepresented among those who opted out altogether. Overall, by situating this study within a broader nexus of scholarship on gendered sexual scripts and technological affordances, results offer a new interpretation of young adult sexuality that accounts for the sociotechnical mechanisms shaping contemporary (hetero)sexual scripts.
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