TikTok's 'Illiterate Boyfriend' Test Draws 8.8 Million Views as Women Vent Dating-Market Frustration
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 3
TikTok's 'Illiterate Boyfriend' Test Draws 8.8 Million Views as Women Vent Dating-Market Frustration
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 3
Summary
An 8.8 million-view TikTok clip helped propel the “Illiterate Boyfriend” trend, in which women ask male partners to pronounce words like “epitome,” “fuchsia” and “hors d’oeuvres” — often with failing scores.
A 5-of-17 result in one widely shared video became fodder for breakup jokes and political digs, but experts said the trend is less about vocabulary than women’s frustration with finding an equal partner.
Pew’s 2024 data shows 47% of women ages 25 to 34 hold a bachelor’s degree versus 37% of men, reinforcing what one psychologist called an oversupply of educated women in the dating market.
Reading habits and app behavior point to the same gap: in 2022, nearly half of women read a novel or short story versus one in four men, while Tinder says book mentions in bios rose 40% for women and 23% for men.
Therapists and sociologists cautioned that the test is elitist and a poor measure of intelligence, yet it has become a viral outlet for broader straight-women disillusionment with dating.