Speaker 1: Cool zone media grinder. I hardly this is it could
Speaker 1: happen here where today the it is gay flirting and
Speaker 1: or harassment, and the here is Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four Republican National Convention. I'm gare also known
Speaker 1: by my undercover alias Garrison Davis, and I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be one of our on the ground RNZ correspondence.
Speaker 1: A few weeks ago. We provided daily coverage of the
Speaker 1: GOP Coronation festival based on our conversations with delegates, lobbyists,
Speaker 1: and think tank ghoules, and reported on the general trends
Speaker 1: in rhetoric used by popular speakers at the event. We'll
Speaker 1: have some more in depth episodes about those topics in
Speaker 1: the weeks to come, using more of our recorded interviews
Speaker 1: we collected at the convention. But on top of our
Speaker 1: regular coverage, I also had a special assignment that I'm
Speaker 1: more or less assigned to myself. On this show, we
Speaker 1: often talk about right wing extremism and issues facing gay
Speaker 1: and trans people, including the various ways conservatives and Christian
Speaker 1: nationalists are trying to make life harder for queer people,
Speaker 1: whether through legislation, online harassment, and physical violence as These
Speaker 1: are two of our most frequently covered topics. Being at
Speaker 1: the Republican National Convention provided me with the perfect opportunity
Speaker 1: to investigate the intersection between conservatism and homosexuality. For years,
Speaker 1: I've heard rumors and urban legends about a massive influx
Speaker 1: of Republicans flocking to the gay hookup app Grinder to
Speaker 1: get laid during the R and C. Whether they be
Speaker 1: twenty year old Republican twinks from Miami or fifty three
Speaker 1: year old self hating, closeted gay men from Idaho trapped
Speaker 1: in loveless marriages, curiosity has often gotten the better of me,
Speaker 1: and I needed to know how many homosexual Republicans were
Speaker 1: actually logging onto Grinder You're unfamiliar. Grinder is technically a
Speaker 1: dating app that serves the LGBTQ community, but in actuality,
Speaker 1: it is a mediocre hookup app that mostly serves as
Speaker 1: a way for strangers in their forties to completely unprompted
Speaker 1: send you unflattering pictures of their penis. Grinder was launched
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine and is arguably the largest
Speaker 1: and most popular gay dating app, especially among men. Grinder
Speaker 1: has only been around for two in person RNCs prior
Speaker 1: to this point twenty twelve and twenty sixteen, since all
Speaker 1: convention activities moved online during twenty twenty for the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So this July, for the first time in eight years,
Speaker 1: Republicans from all around the country could gather in one
Speaker 1: city and once their wives fell asleep, log on to
Speaker 1: Grinder and this episode, I'm going to tell you about
Speaker 1: my RNC Grinder experience. Before traveling to the city that
Speaker 1: was about to be invaded by all of the weirdest
Speaker 1: Republicans in the country, I needed to do some prep
Speaker 1: to help ensure safety and success in my investigative endeavor.
Speaker 1: I hope you queers liked that terrible punt. Based on
Speaker 1: the massive increase in violent anti trans rhetoric coming from
Speaker 1: the GOP, I already knew that I would be dusting
Speaker 1: off my old boy motor skills and going undercover as
Speaker 1: a cisgender male. Although my ability to pass as a
Speaker 1: straight mail is debatable, I can at least easily pass
Speaker 1: as a not quite straight male. My trans feminine fashion
Speaker 1: taste has been skewing more mask lesbian in recent years,
Speaker 1: so clothing wasn't really an issue. I packed up basically
Speaker 1: all my button up collared shirts, three ties, two black suits,
Speaker 1: and a beige London fog trench coat. Basically, the vibe
Speaker 1: I was going for was half young Republican, half Roman
Speaker 1: towel boy dressed as a nineteen fifties FBI agent. I
Speaker 1: refer to this as Dale Cooper Moting. I was unwilling
Speaker 1: to cut my hair to match most of the young
Speaker 1: Republican frat boys, so I settled on styling my wavy
Speaker 1: blonde locks like Baron Trump meets Total Swinton. In Constantine.
Speaker 1: I was kind of Gabriel maxing for most of the convention,
Speaker 1: and though most attendees were unable to pick up on
Speaker 1: my diikish undertones, the one day I wasn't wearing a tie,
Speaker 1: I did get she heard by the Secret Service when
Speaker 1: entering the convention through a security checkpoint. They're going woke.
Speaker 1: So that was my general look for the convention. I
Speaker 1: also completely remade my Grinder profile for the RNZ For
Speaker 1: simplicity's sake, I got to emphasize my twinkish past and
Speaker 1: removed the explicitly non binary transgender aspects of my profile,
Speaker 1: replacing some of my more trans coded photos with pictures
Speaker 1: of my light yagami and Dale Cooper cosplay. Perhaps next
Speaker 1: rn C I can experiment with discovering how many of
Speaker 1: the RNC attendees are chasers. But for safety's at sake,
Speaker 1: I went to more stealth, both online and in person
Speaker 1: at RNC related events. For my main profile picture, I
Speaker 1: chose a pretty basic photo of me with disheveled hair,
Speaker 1: wearing a light gray shirt and thin blackes I looking
Speaker 1: just frankly exhausted. I chose the simple yet elegant user
Speaker 1: name Twink, and for my bio wrote gen z in
Speaker 1: town for Convention, which I thought was pretty funny and
Speaker 1: signals to people that yes, I am here for the RNC,
Speaker 1: but leaves the exact reason why still a bit mysterious.
Speaker 1: So this was my bait. On my way to the airport,
Speaker 1: I was already dressed for the part, as I suspected
Speaker 1: the flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee would be part of
Speaker 1: the whole RNC experience. I arrived at the gate and
Speaker 1: the vibe shift was immediate. Older white men with even
Speaker 1: whiter hair wearing a mix of poorly tailored suits and
Speaker 1: country club polo shirts fit for the driving range. They
Speaker 1: all kind of looked like my Republican grandfather. The women, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: regardless of age, were all cause playing their favorite female
Speaker 1: Fox and News anchor with bleached blonde hair. There were
Speaker 1: a handful of delegates as well as Republican super fans
Speaker 1: wearing Trump buttons and mega hats, just really excited to
Speaker 1: be going to the convention, the way a NERD would
Speaker 1: be excited to go to San Diego Comic Con. Others
Speaker 1: at the gate were more subdued, perhaps not wanting to
Speaker 1: attract too much attention in the Atlanta airport, but I
Speaker 1: could still overhear them getting into quiet small talk about
Speaker 1: their RNC expectations and in hushed tones, asking others at
Speaker 1: the gate if they were going to the convention. And
Speaker 1: that's what everyone called it, not the Republican Convention, not
Speaker 1: the GOP convention or the RNC the convention. As I
Speaker 1: was borning the plane, an older woman with straw like
Speaker 1: blonde hair, sitting a few rows in front of me
Speaker 1: waved me and asked, young man, are you going to
Speaker 1: the convention? I gave my best yes, ma'am, took my seat,
Speaker 1: and then heard her remark to her friend about how
Speaker 1: happy she was that more young people are attending the convention.
Speaker 1: And I would suspect she would be quite disappointed to
Speaker 1: learn why I was attending the convention and what I
Speaker 1: was doing there, mainly trying to collect as much information
Speaker 1: about these weird RNC Grinder Republicans as I can. And
Speaker 1: you will hear more about those weird Grinder RNC Republicans
Speaker 1: after the break. This episode is brought to you in
Speaker 1: part by the top Gun soundtrack, which I was listening
Speaker 1: to as I was coming down from adderall while writing
Speaker 1: the second half of this episode, as well as these
Speaker 1: products and sponsors. Okay, back to the Grind. Most convention
Speaker 1: activities took place in the Peiser Forum, which it took
Speaker 1: about four days to learn how to pronounce. This venue
Speaker 1: is usually home to the NBA team, the Milwaukee Bucks,
Speaker 1: and this is where I would do most of my
Speaker 1: Grinder cruising so I could see other profiles within the
Speaker 1: radius of the convention area. Every time I walked into
Speaker 1: the Pfiser Forum, which was multiple times a day for
Speaker 1: four days in a row, I would find a little
Speaker 1: corner or a place to sit and discreetly boot up
Speaker 1: Grinder and refresh my feed to see what profiles were
Speaker 1: in my proximity. Now, if you're unfamiliar with Grinder. One
Speaker 1: of its more terrifying features is the proximity detector, telling
Speaker 1: you what users are near you, whether that be five
Speaker 1: miles away or five feet away. Every night, when I
Speaker 1: got back to the hotel after recording with Robert and Sophie,
Speaker 1: I would once again check a Grinder to see if
Speaker 1: any unlucky delegates were put up in the hotels by
Speaker 1: the airport. The hotel we were staying at was also
Speaker 1: home to the Idaho and North Dakota delegates, and though
Speaker 1: I don't believe anyone from our hotel was on Grinder,
Speaker 1: save for maybe an anonymous profile or two, there definitely
Speaker 1: were RNC attendees at some of the nearby hotels roughly
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred feet away from my bed. The Grinder proximity
Speaker 1: detector was quite useful to me and locating profiles active
Speaker 1: around the footprint of the r and C, as well
Speaker 1: as when sorting through all my messages back home to
Speaker 1: confirm who attended the rn C from out of state.
Speaker 1: Because Milwaukee is about six hundred and fifty miles away
Speaker 1: from Atlanta, if someone's distance marker was substantially different from that,
Speaker 1: I could assume that they were in Milwaukee for the
Speaker 1: r and C from out of state, even if I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to confirm through any brief text exchange. I've
Speaker 1: also done my best to follow up with certain profiles
Speaker 1: to rule out possibilities of secondary traveling or other random
Speaker 1: reasons for why their distance markers might not line up exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think they have it narrowed down pretty well. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've been very patient, and now I think it's time
Speaker 1: to read through the highlights from my grinder in box.
Speaker 1: And I gotta say I think I started off pretty strong.
Speaker 1: While attending the RNC kickoff party the night before the
Speaker 1: convention officially started, I got one of the very first
Speaker 1: messages I received from a twenty one year old Republican
Speaker 1: with the profile picture that's just a close up picture
Speaker 1: of a dark suit with a dark blue shirt and
Speaker 1: magenta tie, already horrendous vibes. He asked me if I
Speaker 1: was quote unquote with the GOP and I said I
Speaker 1: was attending with friends, and then I got no further response.
Speaker 1: I saw this guy online throughout the convention, and then
Speaker 1: after the convention was over, he moved like three hundred
Speaker 1: miles away, so I'm pretty sure he was there for
Speaker 1: the RNC. I got a message from someone who identified
Speaker 1: himself as a local conservative quote but not a hardcore
Speaker 1: Republican unquote, and he was excited the convention was in town,
Speaker 1: hopeful that he would quote meet my future husband unquote.
Speaker 1: The first chaser I encountered with the bio looking for
Speaker 1: some lady dick to feel in my ass, saw through
Speaker 1: my cisgender disguise and messaged me cock question mark. I
Speaker 1: got one other message from a chaser who was pretending
Speaker 1: to be Tea for Tea, who asked me if I
Speaker 1: was in town for Kitsu Khan an Anima in Green Bay.
Speaker 1: A nice local messaged me, quote hope you're finding what
Speaker 1: you're looking for, smiley face, which was very nice and
Speaker 1: just kind of amusing if you consider that he thought
Speaker 1: I was just a gay Republican looking for some other
Speaker 1: gay Republican. Another local with the name older for young
Speaker 1: sent me the message quote boomer, who will talk politics
Speaker 1: with you or we can just fuck. I asked him
Speaker 1: if the quote unquote talk politics pickup line works very often,
Speaker 1: and he replied quote less often than I would hope.
Speaker 1: For On here zero unquote, he mentioned that he had
Speaker 1: noticed some convention attendees on the app telling me that
Speaker 1: they have infiltrated Grinder. He then asked me what exact
Speaker 1: hotel I was staying at. So that was the end
Speaker 1: of that conversation. A minority of the Milwaukee locals who
Speaker 1: messaged me identified themselves as conservatives and were largely excited
Speaker 1: that the RNC was in town. They vicariously questioned me
Speaker 1: about how the convention was going, as most were disappointed
Speaker 1: that they themselves cannot attend. One such fellaw who described
Speaker 1: Trump's first RNC entrance as electric and a very emotional
Speaker 1: moment for him and the entire crowd unquote, would have
Speaker 1: liked to attend, but he was busy working at the
Speaker 1: hospital because they needed quote extra staffing just in case unquote. Now,
Speaker 1: the worst profile picture I found was an older guy
Speaker 1: wearing a baseball camp and one of those half faced
Speaker 1: skull masks like Adam Offfen used to wear. He said
Speaker 1: he was from Florida and claimed to be in town
Speaker 1: not for the RNC but to visit family, and mentioned
Speaker 1: that Vance had completely sold out his morals for the
Speaker 1: VP spot. This guy's politics were impenetrable. Maybe this was
Speaker 1: just like your average Florida Independent. Very baffling fella. A
Speaker 1: younger guy messaged me, asking you're a Republican and I said,
Speaker 1: not really putting it lightly, and he never got to me.
Speaker 1: I did find a thirty one year old chaser named
Speaker 1: Greg who I do believe was attending the convention, and
Speaker 1: his bio read quote Anon, come drain me trans CD
Speaker 1: as crossdresser sissy fem to the front of the line.
Speaker 1: I asked, you like trans and he responded yes. We
Speaker 1: had no further conversation. I did talk with two other
Speaker 1: people who happened to be covering the convention, including one
Speaker 1: guy who thought I was with CNN because the Grinder
Speaker 1: proximity sensor put me near the CNN area when I
Speaker 1: was actually using Grinder at the Heritage Foundation party. And lastly,
Speaker 1: really the only guy I saw who openly claims to
Speaker 1: be attending the RNC in his public bio was a
Speaker 1: thirty two year old from Shreveport, Louisiana with the user
Speaker 1: name suck me Off one Word. He described the convention
Speaker 1: as exhausting but awesome and told me he was quote
Speaker 1: proud to support President Trump unquote and called Trump's speech
Speaker 1: on the final day amazing. A lot of the RNC speakers,
Speaker 1: including Trump, talked about Corey Compretour, the man who was
Speaker 1: killed at the Trump rally during the attempted assassination. So
Speaker 1: after mister suck me Off talked about how awesome Trump's
Speaker 1: speech was, I just replied to him, poor Corey, and
Speaker 1: he messaged me back Corey Who, and that he told
Speaker 1: me what exact hotel he was staying at. Now, part
Speaker 1: of the danger of trying to use Grinder directly in
Speaker 1: the middle of the RNC, even discreetly, is that even
Speaker 1: if I'm hunched over on my phone, there is a
Speaker 1: non zero chance that some passer by or persons sitting
Speaker 1: right above me might catch a glimpse of an unsolicited
Speaker 1: dick pic that fills my phone screen as I try
Speaker 1: to check my messages. And this is simply a non
Speaker 1: negotiable part of the Grinder experience. Whatever you do, grainy, unflattering,
Speaker 1: bizarrely angled photos of some balding, forty three year old
Speaker 1: married man will appear in your inbox. Ordinarily, I would
Speaker 1: check the profile first to see who might be sending
Speaker 1: me a photo, to weed out the undesirable prospects before
Speaker 1: even considering to open up a DM. Unfortunately, multiple factors
Speaker 1: prevented me from doing this. For one, this was research,
Speaker 1: so I needed to collect the most amount of data possible.
Speaker 1: But moreover, even if I still wanted to vet for
Speaker 1: applicable profiles in my dms, this was impossible without opening
Speaker 1: up each DM individually and clicking through to their profile
Speaker 1: from the chat log. Due to one of the many
Speaker 1: glitches I experienced using Grinder at the RNC, about halfway
Speaker 1: through the week, the app started crashing pretty frequently. But
Speaker 1: the main glitch I had to deal with, which has
Speaker 1: since been fixed, is that I could not access anyone's
Speaker 1: profile from the DM's page. I had to click into
Speaker 1: each individual chat log to open up a user profile,
Speaker 1: which meant I had to look at a lot more
Speaker 1: unsolicited dick pics before even being able to check anyone's profile.
Speaker 1: So there I was watching Ted Cruise's speech, sitting underneath
Speaker 1: about fifty Republicans and right next to both of my bosses,
Speaker 1: scrolling through an endless stream of dick picks to see
Speaker 1: who was local and who was here for the R
Speaker 1: and C, hoping that whatever Republican voter from Alabama wasn't
Speaker 1: looking over my shoulder at the plethora of dimly lit hog,
Speaker 1: but I was far from the only one reporting issues
Speaker 1: with the app during the r and C. Around midday
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, the second day of the convention, over a
Speaker 1: thousand users reported a Grinder outage in the Milwaukee area
Speaker 1: on the website down Detector. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote
Speaker 1: on the final day of the r and C that quote,
Speaker 1: reports of the Grinder app crashing increased by more than
Speaker 1: ninety percent in the past forty eight hours across the
Speaker 1: country unquote. The down detector heat map showed Grinder outages
Speaker 1: in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, as well as
Speaker 1: a hot spot of outages in Milwaukee near the end
Speaker 1: of the convention, indicating users were experience and sing issues
Speaker 1: with the app, possibly due to an increase in activity,
Speaker 1: and you will hear more about that activity after this
Speaker 1: ad break. This episode of It Could Happen Here is
Speaker 1: brought to you in part by the Challenger's soundtrack remix
Speaker 1: by Boys Noise, which I was listening to as I
Speaker 1: wrote most of this episode while on the plane back
Speaker 1: to Atlanta. This episode is also brought to you by
Speaker 1: these products and services. We once again return to the grind.
Speaker 1: We gotta keep on grinding. We're almost done, but we
Speaker 1: got to grind a little more. Just one more grind
Speaker 1: bro I swear about addictors on more grind broachs one
Speaker 1: more grind. During the influx of reports about the Grinder
Speaker 1: app breaking during the RNC, a post from the Twitter
Speaker 1: account for the Halfway Post went extremely viral, bolstering claims
Speaker 1: of a massive increase in activity. Quote breaking, an executive
Speaker 1: of the gay dating app Grinder says the Republican National
Speaker 1: Convention is quote basically Grinder's super Bowl unquote. This quote
Speaker 1: from a Grinder executive went super viral, prompting discussions all
Speaker 1: over the Internet about five different articles and even disgraced
Speaker 1: former New York Congressman George Sentos commented on the phenomenon
Speaker 1: content warning, gay Republican, so.
Speaker 2: Grinder executives are calling the RNC convention the Grinder super Bowl. Folks. Look,
Speaker 2: I'm openly gay, no qualms about it. Proud conservative Republican.
Speaker 2: I met my husband on Grinder and we've been together
Speaker 2: for six years going on seven, married.
Speaker 1: For almost three.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: Just come out the closet. Boys, Come on, it's fun.
Speaker 2: You can be gay and conservative, but look, Grinder's already
Speaker 2: anyway based on the hits, and guess who's in town.
Speaker 2: It's all you conservatives.
Speaker 1: By now, I certainly did observe a lot of blank
Speaker 1: or anonymous profiles, at least more than I'm used to.
Speaker 1: I also received messages containing variations of hey sexy from
Speaker 1: at least five accounts that have since been deactivated. And
Speaker 1: this does line up with a report from a Milwaukee
Speaker 1: area Grinder user who spoke with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Speaker 1: saying that he noticed a major bump in anonymous users. Quote.
Speaker 1: On any given day, you'll go on there and see
Speaker 1: a headless torso or a blank profile, said the source,
Speaker 1: who did not want to be named. The Grinder user said,
Speaker 1: on a normal day, you'll encounter maybe ten users with
Speaker 1: no public profile. But Thursday, when he checked the app,
Speaker 1: he said he stopped counting at fifty blank profile photos unquote. Now,
Speaker 1: we don't have any official data yet on Grinder usage
Speaker 1: near the twenty twenty four R and C only the
Speaker 1: down detector reports which our user submitted, but we do
Speaker 1: at least have data from the last in person convention
Speaker 1: in Cleveland, Ohio. All the Way Back in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: a Vice article by Candice Brian spoke with sources from
Speaker 1: Grinder and wrote that quote, Grinder usage near the Quick
Speaker 1: and Loans Arena showed a sixty six percent increase during
Speaker 1: the RNC. Other active destinations including Times Square, Capitol Hill, Disneyland,
Speaker 1: South Beach, and Trump Tower showed no comparable increase in
Speaker 1: active users. Unquote. Many of the local twinks and trans
Speaker 1: folks certainly were concerned about possible RNC freaks hiding on
Speaker 1: the app. People would often first ask me if I
Speaker 1: was a Republican or why I was in town before
Speaker 1: trying to hit on me. One such twink told me, quote,
Speaker 1: I would be surprised if you were a delegate or something,
Speaker 1: but I had to check. As the week progressed, more
Speaker 1: locals told me that they had found a handful of
Speaker 1: out and proud patriots online, but really not many. In fact,
Speaker 1: multiple Milwaukee locals I chatted with on Grinder did claim
Speaker 1: to notice an uptick in users, but mostly recognizable local
Speaker 1: users who were online for the same reason I was
Speaker 1: to see if there was an influx of closet Republicans.
Speaker 1: Someone told me, quote, for the record, it's like three
Speaker 1: times busier here than normal. Everyone is out to see
Speaker 1: what the Republicans are up to, and the chasers have
Speaker 1: come out of the woodwork unquote. Far from being the
Speaker 1: app's super Bowl. According to Weis, the twenty sixteen rnc's
Speaker 1: sixty six percent bump in activity is less than one
Speaker 1: half of the increase in Grinder activity that was seen
Speaker 1: at the last in person DNC, an event which was
Speaker 1: also a whole day shorter I'll rage from Wece quote. However,
Speaker 1: from Sunday to Monday, the week of the Democratic National Convention,
Speaker 1: there was an even higher one hundred and forty eight
Speaker 1: percent increase in activity around the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia. Quote.
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting that of that sixty six percent
Speaker 1: increase in activity around the twenty sixteen r and C,
Speaker 1: only about forty percent of those users were visiting Cleveland,
Speaker 1: most were locals. Meanwhile, sixty percent of Grinder users active
Speaker 1: near the DNC in Philadelphia were visiting the city. Oh,
Speaker 1: and that quote from a Grinder executive calling the RNZ
Speaker 1: Grinder's super Bowl, as well as George Sandos's other claim
Speaker 1: about Grinder purposely outing gay conservatives. Both of those claims
Speaker 1: originate from Twitter satire accounts. It is totally made up,
Speaker 1: pure fiction. It's fiction. It's fiction.
Speaker 2: We made it up. We made this one up.
Speaker 1: It's a made up tail. It's a total fabrication. It
Speaker 1: never happened. It's an urban legend that never happened. So no,
Speaker 1: the RNZ is not Grinder's a super Bowl. I got
Speaker 1: messages from over one hundred and fifty different people. Over
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the messages I received and profiles visible
Speaker 1: online even while inside the Pfizer forum were from locals
Speaker 1: completely unaffiliated with the rn Z, and any boost activity
Speaker 1: that can be attributed to people for the RNC is
Speaker 1: a minuscule drop in the bucket compared to the proverbial
Speaker 1: orgy festival of out of town gay Democrats who travel
Speaker 1: to the DNC and like, if you think about this logically,
Speaker 1: this shouldn't at all be surprising. The Republican Party has
Speaker 1: spent the past two years screaming about how all drag
Speaker 1: queens are child groomers, and though this was the first
Speaker 1: year the GOP has removed opposition to gay marriage from
Speaker 1: their party platform, they have massively increased their opposition to
Speaker 1: and attacks against trans people, and really any display of
Speaker 1: a visible queerness, like come on, this is the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: There's this kind of fucked up cultural conception that homophobic
Speaker 1: politicians must be so because they are secretly gay. And
Speaker 1: while there is the occasional like Lindsey Graham or repressed
Speaker 1: homosexual preacher, this is not the norm and all Republicans
Speaker 1: being secretly gay is not the driving force of legislative homophobia.
Speaker 1: It is an ideal logical drive, largely in furtherance of
Speaker 1: hegemonic Christian nationalism, and now for people like Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and more, young Republicans of fascistic notion of reproductive futurism
Speaker 1: built on fears that young people white people aren't having
Speaker 1: enough white babies, which they partially attribute to society becoming
Speaker 1: more accepting of gay and trans people, resulting in people
Speaker 1: having less reproductive or heterosexual sex. Never mind the fact
Speaker 1: that queer and trans people oftentimes can and do have children,
Speaker 1: which still doesn't seem to please these conservatives, as it
Speaker 1: doesn't align with their traditionalist view of the family unit.
Speaker 1: So no Grinder wasn't flooded with closeted Republicans because there
Speaker 1: simply isn't that many closeted Republicans that are going to
Speaker 1: be attending the RNC, And while there may not be
Speaker 1: as many Republicans as I thought there might be, I
Speaker 1: do believe that I have the bump in activity, albeit
Speaker 1: a smaller bump than rumored. Basically figured out based on
Speaker 1: my anecdotal experience and the reports of a han full
Speaker 1: of local Grinder users and journalists I talked with who
Speaker 1: were online during the twenty twenty four rn C, and
Speaker 1: considering the twenty sixteen Grinder data, I can report that
Speaker 1: merely a small minority of activity was due to ordinary
Speaker 1: RNZ attendees. The majority of activity was from locals who
Speaker 1: either regularly used Grinder or were specifically curious about who
Speaker 1: might be online during the RNC. I observed two more
Speaker 1: groups that would contribute to any noticeable increase in activity.
Speaker 1: Not everyone who attends the RNC are guests or delegates.
Speaker 1: A lot of people work at the convention center or
Speaker 1: work tech, and a sizeable chunk of people are like
Speaker 1: myself researchers, polsters, or journalists who attend conventions like this
Speaker 1: for work. And lastly, the final group that fills out
Speaker 1: the bump in Grinder activity. One that I for some
Speaker 1: reason didn't really expect to see upon arrival, but in
Speaker 1: retrospect makes total sense. Are cops so many? There were
Speaker 1: so many cops online at the RNC, just like delegates
Speaker 1: or reporters. They are coming to town from all around
Speaker 1: the country. There was cops or state troopers from Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, California, Indiana, and many more states, as well
Speaker 1: as US Capitol Police, Secret Service, TSA, DHS, and FBI.
Speaker 1: They were all in town as a part of the
Speaker 1: security detail. A few of the guys that messaged me
Speaker 1: I can absolutely confirm are one hundred percent police or
Speaker 1: some kind of military police. A thirty three year old
Speaker 1: cop or military guy quote looking for sexy bottoms with
Speaker 1: the tag's jock, military discreete and weightlifting, as well as
Speaker 1: many pictures of him in the gym. Said it in
Speaker 1: his bio that he was quote really into slim, skinny
Speaker 1: toned and muscular people. He messaged me saying, Hey, now
Speaker 1: I got a lot of haze in my inbox, which
Speaker 1: is not unusual for Grinder. You will pry mostly get
Speaker 1: hay as a message as well as just like you know,
Speaker 1: a picture of someone's penis, but between a penis and hey,
Speaker 1: those are probably the two most received messages you will
Speaker 1: get on Grinder. There was another guy with a username
Speaker 1: DL military who said in his bio he was working
Speaker 1: security for the week and that Grinder messages had completely
Speaker 1: broke for him and to instead message him on Snapchat.
Speaker 1: The DL in DL military stands for down low. It's
Speaker 1: a tag that only the worst people on Grinder will use,
Speaker 1: mainly like self hating gay men who are closeted, and
Speaker 1: it's download because they don't want to be like publicly
Speaker 1: seen being gay. Just absolutely the worst. We do not
Speaker 1: fuck with DL, both literally and figuratively. There were a
Speaker 1: bunch of other non locals who I would describe as
Speaker 1: cop types. I can't one hundred percent say for sure
Speaker 1: that they are cops, but they have like the look,
Speaker 1: you know, like the look the cop look. I don't know.
Speaker 1: They could also be like a bodyguard or working private secure.
Speaker 1: But one of these cop looking guys message to me
Speaker 1: asking if I was a trans guy, which I always
Speaker 1: loved to see. It means I'm doing gender very well.
Speaker 1: And a few other cop types sent relatively boring messages.
Speaker 1: So yeah, A lot of cops, which is not completely
Speaker 1: surprising considering the fact that basically half the cops in
Speaker 1: the country were at the Republican National Convention in some
Speaker 1: form or another. A few final notes, Now this didn't
Speaker 1: really make up a sizable chunk of the Grinder population,
Speaker 1: but after saying I was just covering the RNC, a
Speaker 1: couple of people on Grinder, just completely unprompted, told me
Speaker 1: that they were attending the protests against the RNC. Please
Speaker 1: do not do this. That's a horrible idea for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: You gotta stop talking about your political activities on dating apps,
Speaker 1: especially Grinder, especially at the RNC. Horrible idea. Do not
Speaker 1: do this. And despite my lazy attempt at a young
Speaker 1: Republican disguised online profile, a few too many people did
Speaker 1: recognize me from Twitter or the pod, but they were
Speaker 1: very nice. They gave me some recommendations for what gay
Speaker 1: bars to check out after conventioned hours, and one person
Speaker 1: told me this interesting anecdote that I'd like to share. Quote,
Speaker 1: I don't think Trump is going to win. I can
Speaker 1: missed for Hillary in twenty sixteen, and at least here
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel the same. Unquote. I thought that was
Speaker 1: a little interesting tibit that I received at probably round
Speaker 1: three am on grinder, So there you go. Anyway, that
Speaker 1: was my RNC Grinder experience. I'm sorry to report it
Speaker 1: is not the hotbed of closeted Republicans that we mean
Speaker 1: it to be. It's mostly local gaze, a few reporters
Speaker 1: and a few more cops. I do not think I'll
Speaker 1: be reporting on the DNC Grinder, but I am curious
Speaker 1: to see if there is a sizeable increase in activity
Speaker 1: as compared to the RNC Grinder, So I guess I
Speaker 1: will maybe posted by that on Twitter at Hungry bow
Speaker 1: Tie if you want updates on that. Anyway, stay safe
Speaker 1: out there. Be careful if you're ever on grinder. Please
Speaker 1: especially don't tell someone covering the RNC that you're attending
Speaker 1: any protests. But in general, be careful on these types
Speaker 1: of dating apps and I will see you on the
Speaker 1: other side. Message from Quickie Grinder said you were super
Speaker 1: close yesterday. Wasn't stalking? I promise? Message from birthday present emoji.
Speaker 1: I almost thought you were Josh Thomas. Message from anonymous
Speaker 1: wait are you pro or anti Republican? I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I mainly asked your politics because I thought you were cute,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to hit on a Trumper message
Speaker 1: from older for young. Aren't all the delegates propositioning you?
Speaker 1: You're cute? Message from anonymous? Why establish a detlitarian state
Speaker 1: if I can't breed? It's a dictator message from suck
Speaker 1: me off. I'm down for anything. Lol. Are you supporting Trump? Ha? Ha?
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.