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Grindr, the app designed for men seeking other men, is typically imagined as a space for sexting, hookups, and maybe an occasional date. However, for many Queer immigrants arriving in a new city, Grindr and other dating apps have become more than a hookup app. Bridging access to Queer social and logistical networks and oering a window into their host culture, they function as a survival tool and social lifeline.
A 2017 study based in Copenhagen explored how immigrants new to the city used Grindr, interviewing multiple young men who reported that nearly all their gay friends were from the app. One Iranian immigrant told the story of his earliest contact in Denmark, and now friend, who found him a part-time job and oered his apartment for rent. The private chat feature is used to find friends, learn about the community, share local events like dances and social meets. Necessities like rooms to rent, jobs, and buying bikes are sometimes advertised publicly on profiles.
Over 600 Grindr profiles were captured as part of the study. The app’s simple profiles feature one optional photo, dropdown selections for age, weight, height, race, and sexual preferences, and space for around 50 words of text. In addition to the typical accounts searching for hookups, there was a significant number of men looking for platonic connections via phrases in their profiles: “Looking for friends, fun and a gym partner,” “You will find a loyal, faithful friend in me,” and “New in town don’t know anybody. Wanna meet up for a drink or something?” Other profiles were more direct in their search for needs like “Currently looking for a room. Hit me up if you can oer anything” and “Looking for a cleaning job, if u need it, i would do my best, also wanna make friends and have a date,” or just “Looking4room.” Certain phrases became coded in the informal infrastructure, with ‘new in town’ signaling ‘I need help finding my way.’
Another study following middle eastern immigrants in Germany found the same support network in Berlin and highlighted the anecdote of an asylum seeker that was able to get a room in a Queer refugee shelter with help from contacts made on a Gay dating site. The study unfolded another unintended use of Grindr as a platform for transnational activism. One example was a queer Egyptian refugee who fled to Germany and then turned to social media to reengage with their community in Egypt, using Grindr to look for fake accounts used by police to track down other gay Egyptians and reporting them to the platform. These eorts led to a statement by Grindr to its userbase warning of dangers in online dating in Egypt.
Other immigrants use their profiles as a soapbox to speak out against xenophobic and fetishizing trends in the countries they move to. In Denmark, 1 in 100 profiles had a note explicitly saying they are not into Asians. The profile dropdown menus encourage users to identify with an ethnicity, oering blanket identity options like ‘middle eastern’, as well as a language option. Some immigrants opt out of selecting certain categories, preferring to not be searchable by race or spoken language out of concern for being sought out for a fetish.
Why not Facebook?
The question that follows ‘why use dating apps’ is ‘why not use more conventional networking sites?’ such as Facebook or LinkedIn. The answer is in the nature of the application. Since its release in 2009, Grindr has become the largest and most popular dating site in the world, and it oers a level of anonymity away from mainstream social media. Many Queer immigrants are not out or open about their sexuality and want to reserve their Facebook for connecting with friends and family back home. Those fleeing from prosecution often want to keep their sexual orientation private from their diasporic community. Others want to stay disconnected from family and certain cultural spaces, to protect themselves from harm.
A sense of belonging and trust within the Queer diaspora is another important factor attracting users to Grindr. The shared identity of sexual minorities fosters solidarity and familiarity, especially when multiple intersectional identities are shared. This is why, even though looking for housing and work through dating apps is less effective than conventional websites, many still try their luck within their community.
Social Effects on Immigrants
Finally, it is important to consider the secondary eects of immigrant integration on Grindr and dating apps. Platforms themselves are not neutral, having been developed within a specific context. Grindr facilitates social connections just as much as it imposes meanings on them. Information about gender, racial norms, and dynamics of their host country are taught through dating profiles and interactions, as well as what kinds of intimate and romantic Queer relationships are valid. Often these norms around gender, sexuality, and ‘Gayness’ do not line up with immigrants’ lived experiences, creating a pressure to conform.
Some risks for exclusion are built directly into Grindr’s interface, with Race and Ethnicity being front and center in profile construction. Exclusion then becomes an issue, with language barriers used to divide out who speaks the local language and judge cultural dierences. Ongoing issues of xenophobia lead to negative and racially charged interactions on the app, and immigrants must navigate their identity while looking for companionship. All of this, of course, assumes that they have access to a smartphone to begin with.
Bibliography
Bayramoğlu, Y. (2024). 9. Queer Digital Migration Research: Two Case Studies. In Doing Digital Migration Studies (pp. 215–232). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048555758-015
Gay immigrants and grindr: Revitalizing queer urban spaces? – spotlight on Disruptive Urban Technologies. IJURR. (2019, January 11). https://www.ijurr.org/spotlight- on/disruptive-urban-technologies/gay-immigrants-and-grindr-revitalizing-queer-urban- spaces/
Katz, R. A. (2023). Grindr Tourism Among Tourists, Locals, and Immigrants: Dating App Impacts for Social Relations, Gay Tourism, and Digital Convergence. Social Media + Society, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231192033
Shield, A. DJ. (2017). New in Town: Gay Immigrants and Geosocial Dating Apps. In A. Dhoest, L. Szulc, & B. Eeckhout (Eds.), LGBTQs, Media and Culture in Europe (pp. 244-261). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315625812-26
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