Is grindr only for gay guys
Grindr is going straight. The mobile app that helps gay men track their nearest potential date is launching a new service that will allow women to turn their mobiles into GPS-powered dating tools. Joel Simkhai, Grindr's year-old founder, said he had received tens of thousands of requests from women asking for a straighter, female-friendly version of Grindr. Project X, which will be named in the next few weeks, will be very different to the gay version. But Simkhai said location would still be the service's key selling point.
The New Glory Hole
Grindr is going straight. The mobile app that helps gay men track their nearest potential date is launching a new service that will allow women to turn their mobiles into GPS-powered dating tools. Joel Simkhai, Grindr's year-old founder, said he had received tens of thousands of requests from women asking for a straighter, female-friendly version of Grindr.
Project X, which will be named in the next few weeks, will be very different to the gay version. But Simkhai said location would still be the service's key selling point. We are all social creatures. But men and women are different. Grindr was made for a man. If we are going to bring women in to this we have to do things differently.
Simkhai said Grindr would work for straight men as it is, if it were populated by straight women. So what. It happens all the time. We have got to provide more," he said. Women obviously want to see someone that they might find attractive, but they need to know more than that.
Simkhai said that, while he is most interested in getting women to sign up, people will be able to sign up as gay, lesbian, bisexual or any mix of the above. Grindr now has more than 1. Users sign up with a photo and the barest of stats — age, height, weight.
No graphic nudity is allowed. Once you sign on, the app presents a grid of pictures of potential dates sorted by proximity using GPS technology accurate to a couple of hundred feet. People interested in meeting can text each other or send more photos using the app. The app has become a gay phenomenon. Blog The New Gay called Grindr the "biggest change in gay hookups since the 'hanky code'". I didn't have to figure out who was gay. Every time you go somewhere new, you have a new set of guys.
The app has its critics who argue it reinforces a gay male stereotype. I'm not going to tell people you have to go out on a date with someone, and you have to hang out for at least three hours before you do anything else. That's not going to happen," said Simkhai. That's all we do. To me what you do with that information is up to you. Sometimes you meet people and you become friends, sometimes you fall in love, sometimes you have a sexual relationship, sometimes you want nothing to do with them.
That's life. Grindr is just part of what real life is all about. Other dating sites have advised users not to meet people just because they are close, said Simkhai. Why not just go and meet the people who are close to you instead of spending hours and hours chatting online only to meet and find there's no chemistry? Scott Valentine, a New York-based artist, has been using Grindr to find gay men for a portrait project, Project Targeted.
He said he was fascinated by the service. It's all there. They can walk into any bar and have that already.
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Grindr is the world's largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people. Download Grindr today to discover, connect to, and explore the queer. This should have been a good year for Grindr. Instead, the app has been plagued with blunders -- and many users aren't happy.
Chaim Kuhnreich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. How do we present ourselves on our dating profiles? When we select our photos, what do our selections say about us?
The Guyliner explains the dos and don'ts when you're hooking up on the most popular gay mobile app in the world.
Gay hook-up and dating app Grindr is a decade old today. Launched to help gay and bisexual men connect with each other, the app now has almost 4 million users worldwide. Grindr is what many gay men used to first experience their wider community.
Grindr turns 10: How a decade with GPS 'dating' apps changed us all
They created the account together, intending to connect with other queer people in their small Midwestern city of Appleton, Wis. By all accounts, should have been a record year for the leading gay dating app, which touts some 27 million users. Instead, the Los Angeles-based company has received backlash for one blunder after another. The Kindr campaign attempts to stymie the racism, misogyny, ageism and body-shaming that many users endure on the app. For nearly a decade, Grindr resisted doing anything about it. Talk about too little, too late.
Grindr Users Talk Highs and Lows After Ten Years of the App
Grindr comes in both free and subscription-based versions the latter called Grindr Xtra. The app makes use of a mobile device's geolocation , a feature of smartphones and other devices, which allows users to locate other users who are nearby. This is accomplished through a user interface that displays a grid of representative photos of men, arranged from nearest to furthest away. Tapping on a picture will display a brief profile for that user, as well as the option to chat, send pictures, and share one's precise location. Grindr was one of the first gay geosocial apps to launch in the iTunes App Store and has since become the largest and most popular gay mobile app in the world. It is currently available in countries. For its first anniversary on March 25, , Grindr released the app for BlackBerry devices. On March 7, , Grindr launched the app for Android devices. On June 18, , Grindr announced that it had officially hit 4 million registered users in countries across the globe. In August , Grindr released an updated version of the app requiring users to verify their accounts by providing a valid email address.
It's also particularly challenging for members of the LGBTQ community, who've traditionally only had access to hetero-based sites and apps. When I was on the apps in the late aughts, queer women could barely be found.
Chat and meet up with interesting people for free, or upgrade to Grindr XTRA or Grindr Unlimited for more features, more fun, and more chances to connect. Looking for even more? Want the ultimate Grindr experience?
Grindr app goes straight – but there are different rules for women
If you're gay, single and ready to mingle then there's never been a better time to go on the hunt. Well, better and We take you through every app for every need. So your gay ass is looking for love. Or sex. Love or sex. Maybe both. Gay dating apps are a scourge. Homosexuality does not make you worse, or better, than the conveniences of modern society. The thing is, they do differ from the standard offerings, even when you are on the standard offerings: the clandestine nature of gay love and a decade of Grindr mean even in the most mundane of places we find a way to switch it up. I have met some of the most amazing men in my life on apps, and also some of the worst. Nowhere is safe, nowhere is perfect, nowhere is all bad. So here is a guide to the best dating apps out there for love, lust and everything in between. We all knew we would start here. Miss thing is the standard, the OG, the black monolith that appeared before the chimps in A Space Odyssey and changed the face of man.
The best apps for gay dating, gay sex and gay romance
Now, a decade after Grindr first launched in the App Store, it has an left an indelible mark on the gay and bisexual community. Countless gay men have met their life partners, formed relationships, met friends, and traveled the world with the support of gay family thanks to the queer digital space created by Grindr and the many apps it inspired. Historically, Grindr was the first iPhone app to combine dating — and sex — with geolocation, birthing a genre that today includes favorites like Tinder and Bumble, which are popular with the larger heterosexual user base. And yet, a decade after its launch, Grindr is ranked highest among apps for making its users unhappy. According to the Center for Humane Technology, data from , iPhone users found that 77 percent of Grindr users who use the app more than one hour per day said doing so made them unhappy. Longer daily use of those apps also correlated to greater levels of unhappiness. All that, Cason said, can cause someone to repeat the activity in order to reduce anxiety. As it turns out, he said, variable ratio reinforcement is one of the most effective ways to produce a repeated activity, harmful or not.
