Grindr

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Grindr

Grindr Logo Black.svg
Basic data

developer Grindr LLC
Publishing year 2009
Current  version 6.17.0
operating system Android , iOS
category social network
License proprietary
www.grindr.com

Grindr is an app for Mobile Dating that there gay , bisexual and transgender men possible to other men near them locate and establish contact with them. With more than five million monthly users in 192 countries (as of 2014), Grindr is the most popular dating app for gay and bisexual men. The app exists for iOS and Android , the version for Blackberry has been discontinued (as of 2019). The app is basically free of charge, but a paid version allows more functions.

Surname

The name "Grindr" was chosen because it embodies the idea of ​​"grinding" people (grinding, grinding, sanding), just like a coffee grinder grinds coffee beans together. In addition, “Grindr” is a trunk word from “Guy” and “Finder”.

Functions

The user interface consists of a mosaic of profile pictures of the hundred closest users, sorted by distance from near to far and with their username. By clicking on the profile picture, the profile picture is enlarged and more information about the user appears (including distance in meters, age, "ethnicity", preferences and a short self-description), enlarging the profile picture, chatting with the person , their pictures or to send your own position. There is the option of blocking users or marking them as favorites. Users can also filter themselves into a group of the gay subculture such as Bear , Twink , Jock , Daddy and Trans and others based on different criteria.

The paid version Grindr Xtra manages without advertising, shows up to 300 profile pictures on the user interface, has more filter options and allows you to quickly switch between the view of different profiles.

The user interface is also accessible without logging in by simply downloading it. A login is required to call up the profiles and all associated functions as well as the filter functions. The app requires a minimum age of 18 years.

use

In 2013 around a sixth of all users used the app every day. They called up the app an average of eight times a day and spent an hour and a half a day with Grindr.

A possible use for users of the app is to meet other men in their vicinity for casual sex : In a study of 195 18- to 24-year-old men who have sex with men in Los Angeles in 2012, 76% said Having had sexual contacts with people they met through Grindr. However, Grindr itself does not advertise this application and prohibits obvious references to sex in profile descriptions as well as complete nudity or clothing exclusively with underwear on public profile pictures. The same study found that the men surveyed used condoms much more often with partners they met through Grindr than with partners they met otherwise.

In addition to searching for sexual contacts, the cultural scientist Kane Race also mentions “checking in” as an essential purpose of users of the app. He sees this as a key element of an erotically inclined gay identity "in which online browsing and random chats are becoming a tempting method of everyday distraction, increasing personal esteem and social recognition ".

Origin and Distribution

Grindr was founded in 2009 by Joel Simkhai .

When the first smartphone with GPS function appeared in 2008, the iPhone 3G , Joel Simkhai commissioned programmers for 5,000 US dollars to develop the app. On March 25, 2009, Nearby Buddy Finder, LLC. them to the market. Although the app was primarily designed for the US market, and most users are still in the United States today, it spread worldwide through reports in online gay magazines and word of mouth. When Stephen Fry mentioned the app on the UK TV show Top Gear in 2009 , the number of users in the UK rose by 30,000. Within a year, the app had 500,000 users.

On June 18, 2012, Grindr announced it had four million users in 192 countries, with 1.1 million using the app every day. For its fifth anniversary in 2014, Grindr announced that the app had been downloaded more than 10 million times and that 5 million users used the app each month. The city with the highest number of users is London with 264,000 users. In 2014, 177,000 men were registered on Grindr in Germany, and around 25,000 in Austria.

Since January 2016, Grindr has been majority owned by the Chinese company Beijing Kunlun Tech .

meaning

Grindr established geosocial mobile dating among gay and bisexual men before comparable apps for straight people like Tinder gained importance in 2012. In 2011, Grindr and Badoo founded Blendr, a heterosexual counterpart, which, however, did not have the same success.

The success of Grindr has led to the emergence of other dating apps for gay and bisexual men with a specialization in subgroups, such as Scruff (for men with beards), Mister (for older men) and Growlr (for bears). At the same time, Grindr is in competition with long-established online contact portals for gay and bisexual men such as PlanetRomeo and Manhunt.net, and this has resulted in established portals focusing more on developing their own apps or expanding mobile versions of their websites.

Controversy and criticism

Jaime Woo criticizes in his book Meet Grindr: How One App Changed The Way We Connect that the predisposition of the app through its minimalist restriction to the appearance of a person forms an important basis for users to act superficially when they get to know each other via the app. A photo and a short description would not provide enough information to create a first impression independent of visual characteristics and could exacerbate the need to conform to classical ideals of beauty.

Common statements on user profiles are, for example, "No Asians", "No Blacks" or "No Fats", as well as the description of skin color or ethnicity in terms of food ( "Chocolate", "curry", "rice"). Grindr is accused of not taking strong enough action against discriminatory language, also because Grindr does not classify such statements as discriminatory, but understands them as an expression of sexual preference . Grindr countered that a large team of moderators enforced the Terms of Use, which, among other things, prohibits content that spreads or glorifies hatred, racism, or physical violence. The company also urges users to describe who they are interested in and not who they are not interested in.

In January 2013, a controversy arose over the increasing trend among Grindr users to take profile pictures at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and use them for dating purposes. Simkhai initially responded by showing that he was deeply moved by the app users “taking part in the Holocaust remembrance,” but later distanced himself from the trend and called for greater respect for the memorial.

In 2014, the Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven, during the art project Wanna Play? - Love in the times of Grindr on Berlin's Heinrichplatz Grindr user invited to his glass container in which he lived for several days. However, he came under fire and had to cancel the originally planned 15-day project with the Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) after five days. Photos and messages from the users were projected onto the container without their knowledge.

Weeks earlier, Grindr had come under fire because it was possible to locate users at their exact location. This is particularly dangerous in countries where gays are persecuted. Grindr has now fixed the vulnerability.

In April 2018, Grindr came under fire after it became known that the company had passed on user data, including in particular place of residence, email address and HIV status, to two external American software companies. A Norwegian research company believed these contractors were not licensed to back up medical data. There is a risk that users could be identified and the data could fall into the wrong hands. Grindr manager Chen said that such disclosure was customary in the industry, and that the partners had been obliged to maintain strict confidentiality.

Grindr for Equality

In February 2012, Grindr founded Grindr for Equality (G4E), a geocentred political service designed to raise awareness of LGBT gender equality issues. In the run-up to the 2012 US election , he encouraged users to register to vote and provided information on LGBT-advocate candidates in their areas.

The G4E is now an international LGBTQ health and human rights program and approved a total of US $ 100,000 in November 2019 to organizations and activists that provide direct service and advocacy to LGBTQ communities in the Middle East and North Africa .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ play.google.com . (accessed on July 15, 2020).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Ulf Lippitz: Grindr: Sex in 120 meters. In: The Standard . November 27, 2014, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Behind the Grindr Name , blog of November 8, 2010 (English)
  4. ↑ Grindr General Terms and Conditions of Use. Retrieved December 6, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Christian Grov et al .: Gay and Bisexual Men's Use of the Internet. Research from the 1990s through 2013 . In: The Journal of Sex Research . 51, No. 4, 2014, pp. 390-409. doi : 10.1080 / 00224499.2013.871626 .
  6. ^ Kane Race: Speculative pragmatism and intimate arrangements: online hook-up devices in gay life . In: Culture, Health & Sexuality: An International Journal for Research, Intervention and Care . 17, No. 4, 2015, pp. 496-511. doi : 10.1080 / 13691058.2014.930181 .
  7. ^ Andrew Lavallee: App Watch: Grindr Says It's More Than a Hook-Up Service. In: Digits ( The Wall Street Journal ). August 17, 2009, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  8. ↑ John Kennedy: Gay dating app Grindr hits 2m users. In: Silicon Republic. June 12, 2011, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Grindr Turns Five! In: Queer Me Up. March 25, 2014, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  10. ↑ ggg.at:Chinese buy majority in Grindr
  11. ↑ Meet Grindr: A Gaydar in Every Pocket. In: On the Media. April 12, 2013, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  12. ↑ a b Zosie Bielski: 'No Asian. No Indian ': Picky dater or racist dater? In: The Globe and Mail. February 23, 2012, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Jaime Woo: Open Letter to Grindr Users: I Am Not Rice, He Is Not Curry. In: Huffington Post . June 28, 2013, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Meredith Bennett-Smith: Grindr Users Post 'Sexy' Pictures From Holocaust Memorial In Bizarre, Ironic Trend. In: Huffington Post. January 31, 2013, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Grindr art project ended prematurely - queer.de. Retrieved June 11, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Grindr reveals the exact location of users - queer.de. Retrieved June 11, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Criticism of Grindr after data was passed on. In: tagesschau.de. April 3, 2018, accessed April 3, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Grindr's Political Bedfellows - Poliglot. October 25, 2012, accessed May 6, 2020 .
  19. ^ Grindr: Grindr for Equality Announces Middle East-North Africa Grant Winners. Retrieved May 6, 2020 .