When the gay social-networking iPhone app Grindr β which allows men to use GPS data to find, chat with, and ideally meet up with other men β was first released in March , no one quite knew what it would become. This was, after all, when location-based technology was still relatively new and when flip-phones were the norm.
Fast-forward to today, when the app boasts more than two million users, with upwards of 45, online at any given moment. It has spread to almost two hundred countries, as well as iPad, Android, BlackBerry, and iPod touch platforms. It was, by most analyses, a failure. Which may not be much of an exaggeration.
Regardless, though, they all agreed that the app is practically ubiquitous in their social circles β and that has both benefits and drawbacks. After all, one man told me, as sleazy as it may feel, Grindr is still a self-selecting crowd by virtue of the fact that you have to have a smartphone to use it. But in doing so, some argue that Grindr masks the dangers inherent in anonymous sex β dangers which are still very real.
In that sense, it has, in a way, democratized gay hookup culture. In other words, though relatively superficial factors like height, age, or a single look would never be a deal-breaker in real life, they very well may be on Grindr. Moreover, some argue that Grindr can also be contrived, superficial, alienating, and indulgent of people who want to stay glued to their phones instead of going out into the world and meeting people.
Some clubs have even introduced Grindr nights, at which patrons are encouraged, somewhat oxymoronically, to find each other through the app rather than through analog methods like, you know, talking to each other. And on a message board, one San Franciscan noted that his gay outdoor activity group has seen steadily dropping attendance β a decrease he attributes to Grindr.
