‘Banksying’ is the cruel new dating trend you need to know about (and avoid at all costs)

Recently, I watched a few episodes of Sex and the City with teenagers. There were obvious revelations in the room: the girls were baffled as to why someone would choose to walk around a city in vertiginous heels, for example; as generations before them have been, they were of course stumped by Carrie Bradshaw’s confounding finances. But the biggest eye-opener – at least for me – was the stark (and, sometimes, downright cruel) differences in dating.

Because, while dating – and, along with it, investment and effort made in the pursuit of love – used to be necessary, for Gen Z and, soon, Gen A, dating has become more or less obsolete.

You don’t need to go on a date to discover someone’s likes or dislikes – you can chat on Snap. You don’t need to get excited about how cute they might look in a new dress or pair of jeans, because they’re all over Insta, and even sex in an age of sexting, porn, and hook-up app culture seems to have lost some of its exciting appeal for the younger generations. And this, in turn, has given way to a heartless dating game with its own language, rules and rituals.

Some of it is now well-established – we’ve all heard of (and maybe experienced) ghosting, when the person you’ve been dating (or just chatting to, which in modern terms is often a substitute for dating in old terms) completely vanishes, cutting off all contact, or the similarly infuriating bread-crumbing. Less well known is throning, a bizarrely modern concept that sees someone date another purely for social or financial clout. And then there’s “banksying”.

This is the newest – possibly cruellest – dating phenomenon, named after the British street artist, whereby one of the partners in a relationship is blindsided by a sudden and unexpected dumping that’s been planned by the other partner for weeks or even months, often using AI and online communities for advice on how to execute this. While the banksy-er is left relieved – and their feelings insulated by all their pre-planning and processing – their victim is left cold and confused.

Rhiannon, a 22-year-old who had been dating her partner for almost a year, experienced it first hand. She and Amir had met each other’s families, lived together at university and had been planning on going travelling. Until, completely out of the blue, Amir ended their relationship. “I was beyond upset,” she tells me, “but what really tipped me over was when my friends saw Amir on TikTok (he blocked me) explaining to his followers how he’d done it.

“He’d basically been withdrawing from the relationship for over six months using advice from ChatGPT and his online ‘bro’ workout communities, so he was prepared for the emotional fallout. I wasn’t, and all the commenters online were laughing at me and congratulating him on his ‘strategy’. I threw up when I saw it.”

The level of glee and cruelty I see on the video Rhiannon speaks about is pretty shocking, but typical: the consensus often seems to be the victim “deserved” the treatment, but in Rhiannon’s case (and many of the others), her transgression seems to be nothing more than being a good, loving girlfriend who was into Amir and their relationship.

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And this is the crux of the problem. In an era of hostile algorithms, the manosphere, the femosphere and influencers who paint an extremely toxic view of the opposite sex, young people are coming of dating age in an atmosphere that’s less Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and more akin to a gender civil war, where the opposing side must not only be heartbroken, but punished and vanquished.

Girls are being told at an impressionable age that “all men are trash” and boys are being told that girls are “scheming b*****s” by people they follow and admire and so it’s unsurprising that they view dating less as a pleasurable pursuit and more as a game of tactics where the goal is not to fall in love, but to win. Even Love Island, the wildly popular dating show, has seemed less about silly games and hookups this year, and more about oppositional solidarity between the young men and women. This year seems to firmly suggest, young dating is not just in a problematic state, but a downright hostile, nasty one that will view banksying, ghosting, breadcrumbing and throning as fair game.

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But dating isn’t a game and shouldn’t be viewed as one – despite what over a decade of influencers have been telling younger generations. At its best, dating is a nerve-wracking, butterfly-inducing, risk-taking appetiser to most great relationships. The time and effort signified not just to the other person but to yourself that this might be something worthwhile, and it also built the foundation of good connections.

It’s a time and space, where you were both at your best and could figure out compatibility and chemistry in all kinds of areas without the need for an algorithm or matchup – something essential for any couple who were going to go the distance.

It is no coincidence that as younger generations become more estranged from the old rituals of dating and courtship, there are serious long-term consequences. Younger people are putting off (or being put off) coupling up and having children. By 2084, the UN predicts, “The global population will officially begin its decline. Rich countries will all have become like Japan, stagnant and ageing. And the rest of the world will have become old before it ever got the chance to become rich.”

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Of course, there are other important factors at play in the stagnating populations – economics, access to contraception, changing attitudes to having children. But we shouldn’t underestimate how much of an important building block the attitude to dating and relationships is in our stability as a society, both now and in the future.

If Gen Z and Gen A believe they don’t like or respect each other enough to safely date each other, let alone form serious, trusting, long-lasting relationships, the long-term consequences are potentially catastrophic.

I ask Rhiannon (who’s highly dateable – she’s bright, beautiful and kind) if she’s planning on re-entering the dating scene and her response is depressing. “No, I don’t think so. I feel like dating is over. Everybody finds it sad, depressing and at worst, humiliating. It’s like we’ve all become strangers who don’t trust each other and don’t like each other much, but are vaguely aware we’re still required to have sex with each other and live with each other at some point in the future. I can’t see that happening.”

I wonder if the real Banksy could paint that sentiment in a mural?