Speaker 1: Cool zone media.
Speaker 2: Grinder. I hardly this is it could happen here where
Speaker 2: today the it is gay flirting and or harassment, and
Speaker 2: the here is Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During the twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: Republican National Convention. I'm gare also known by my undercover
Speaker 2: alias Garrison Davis, and I was lucky enough to be
Speaker 2: one of our on the ground RNZ correspondence. A few
Speaker 2: weeks ago. We provided daily coverage of the GOP Coronation
Speaker 2: festival based on our conversations with delegates, lobbyists, and think
Speaker 2: tank ghoules, and reported on the general trends in rhetoric
Speaker 2: used by popular speakers at the event. We'll have some
Speaker 2: more in depth episodes about those topics in the weeks
Speaker 2: to come, using more of our recorded interviews we collected
Speaker 2: at the convention. But on top of our regular coverage,
Speaker 2: I also had a special assignment that I'm more or
Speaker 2: less assigned to myself. On this show, we often talk
Speaker 2: about right wing extremism and issues facing gay and trans people,
Speaker 2: including the various ways conservatives and Christian nationalists are trying
Speaker 2: to make life harder for queer people, whether through legislation,
Speaker 2: online harassment, and physical violence as These are two of
Speaker 2: our most frequently covered topics. Being at the Republican National
Speaker 2: Convention provided me with the perfect opportunity to investigate the
Speaker 2: intersection between conservatism and homosexuality. For years, I've heard rumors
Speaker 2: and urban legends about a massive influx of Republicans flocking
Speaker 2: to the gay hookup app Grinder to get laid during
Speaker 2: the RNC. Whether they be twenty year old Republican twinks
Speaker 2: from Miami or fifty three year old self hating, closeted
Speaker 2: gay men from Idaho trapped in loveless marriages, curiosity has
Speaker 2: often gotten the better of me, and I needed to
Speaker 2: know how many homosexual Republicans were actually logging onto Grinder
Speaker 2: in case if you're unfamiliar, Grinder is technically a dating
Speaker 2: app that serves the LGBTQ community, but in actuality, it
Speaker 2: is a mediocre hookup app that mostly serves as a
Speaker 2: way for strangers in their forties to completely unprompted send
Speaker 2: you unflattering pictures of their penis. Grinder was launched in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine and is arguably the largest and
Speaker 2: most popular gay dating app, especially among men. Grinder has
Speaker 2: only been around for two In person RNCs prior to
Speaker 2: this point twenty twelve and twenty sixteen, since all convention
Speaker 2: activities moved online during twenty twenty for the pandemic. So
Speaker 2: this July, for the first time in eight years, Republicans
Speaker 2: from all around the country could gather in one city
Speaker 2: and once their wives fell asleep, log on to Grinder
Speaker 2: and this episode, I'm going to tell you about my
Speaker 2: RNC Grinder experience. Before traveling to the city that was
Speaker 2: about to be invaded by all of the weirdest Republicans
Speaker 2: in the country, I needed to do some prep to
Speaker 2: help ensure safety and success in my investigative endeavor. I
Speaker 2: hope you queers liked that terrible pun. Based on the
Speaker 2: massive increase in violent anti trans rhetoric coming from the GOP,
Speaker 2: I already knew that I would be dusting off my
Speaker 2: old boy motor skills and going undercover as a cisgender male.
Speaker 2: Although my ability to pass as a straight mail is debatable,
Speaker 2: I can at least easily pass as a not quite
Speaker 2: straight male. My trans feminine fashion taste has been skewing
Speaker 2: more mask lesbian in recent years, so clothing wasn't really
Speaker 2: an issue. I packed up basically all my button up
Speaker 2: collar shirts, three ties, two black suits, and a beige
Speaker 2: London fog trench coat. Basically, the vibe I was going
Speaker 2: for was half young Republican, half Roman towel boy dressed
Speaker 2: as a nineteen fifties FBI agent. I refer to this
Speaker 2: as Dale Cooper Moting. I was unwilling to cut my
Speaker 2: hair to match most of the young Republican frat boys,
Speaker 2: so I settled on styling my wavy blonde locks like
Speaker 2: Baron Trump meets Total Swinton. In Constantine. I was kind
Speaker 2: of Gabriel maxing for most of the convention, and though
Speaker 2: most attendees were unable to pick up on my diikish undertones,
Speaker 2: the one day I wasn't wearing a tie, I did
Speaker 2: get she heard by the Secret Service when entering the
Speaker 2: convention through a security checkpoint. They're going woke. So that
Speaker 2: was my general look for the convention. I also completely
Speaker 2: remade my Grinder profile for the RNZ For simplicity's sake,
Speaker 2: I got to emphasize my twinkish past and removed the
Speaker 2: explicitly non binary transgender aspects of my profile, replacing some
Speaker 2: of my more trans coded photos with pictures of my
Speaker 2: light yagami and Dale Cooper cosplay. Perhaps next rn C
Speaker 2: I can experiment with discovering how many of the RNC
Speaker 2: attendees are chasers. But for safety's at sake, I went
Speaker 2: to more stealth, both online and in person at RNZ
Speaker 2: related events. For my main profile picture, I chose a
Speaker 2: pretty basic photo of me with disheveled hair, wearing a
Speaker 2: light gray shirt and thin black tie, I looking just
Speaker 2: frankly exhausted. I chose the simple yet elegant user name Twink,
Speaker 2: and for my bio wrote gen z in town for Convention,
Speaker 2: which I thought was pretty funny and signals to people
Speaker 2: that yes, I am here for the RNC, but leaves
Speaker 2: the exact reason why still a bit mysterious. So this
Speaker 2: was my bait. On my way to the airport, I
Speaker 2: was already dressed for the part, as I suspected the
Speaker 2: flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee would be part of the
Speaker 2: whole RNC experience. I arrived at the gate and the
Speaker 2: vibe shift was immediate. Older white men with even whiter
Speaker 2: hair wearing a mix of poorly tailored suits and country
Speaker 2: club polo shirts fit for the driving range. They all
Speaker 2: kind of looked like my Republican grandfather. The women, meanwhile,
Speaker 2: regardless of age, were all cause playing their favorite female
Speaker 2: Fox and News anchor with bleached blonde hair. There were
Speaker 2: a handful of delegates as well as Republican super fans
Speaker 2: wearing Trump buttons and mega hats, just really excited to
Speaker 2: be going to the convention, the way a NERD would
Speaker 2: be excited to go to San Diego Comic Con. Others
Speaker 2: at the gate were more subdued, perhaps not wanting to
Speaker 2: attract too much attention in the Atlanta airport, but I
Speaker 2: could still overhear them getting into quiet small talk about
Speaker 2: their RNC expectations and in hushed tones, asking others at
Speaker 2: the gate if they were going to the convention. And
Speaker 2: that's what everyone called it, not the Republican Convention, not
Speaker 2: the GOP convention or the RNC the convention. As I
Speaker 2: was bording the plane, an older woman with straw like
Speaker 2: blonde hair, sitting a few rows in front of me
Speaker 2: waved me and asked, young man, are you going to
Speaker 2: the convention? I gave my best yes, ma'am, took my seat,
Speaker 2: and then heard her remark to her friend about how
Speaker 2: happy she was that more young people are attending the convention.
Speaker 2: And I would suspect she would be quite disappointed to
Speaker 2: learn why I was attending the convention and what I
Speaker 2: was doing there, mainly trying to collect as much information
Speaker 2: about these weird RNC Grinder Republicans as I can. And
Speaker 2: you will hear more about those weird Grinder RNC Republicans
Speaker 2: after the break. This episode is brought to you in
Speaker 2: part by the top Gun soundtrack, which I was listening
Speaker 2: to as I was coming out from adderall while writing
Speaker 2: the second half of this episode, as well as these
Speaker 2: products and sponsors. Okay, back to the Grind. Most convention
Speaker 2: activities took place in the Peiser Forum, which it took
Speaker 2: about four days to learn how to pronounce. This venue
Speaker 2: is usually home to the NBA team, the Milwaukee Bucks,
Speaker 2: and this is where I would do most of my
Speaker 2: Grinder cruising so I could see other profiles within the
Speaker 2: radius of the convention area. Every time I walked into
Speaker 2: the Pfiser Forum, which was multiple times a day for
Speaker 2: four days in a row, I would find a little
Speaker 2: corner or a place to sit and discreetly boot up
Speaker 2: Grinder and refresh my feed to see what profiles were
Speaker 2: in my proximity. Now, if you're unfamiliar with Grinder. One
Speaker 2: of its more terrifying features is the proximity detector, telling
Speaker 2: you what users are near you, whether that be five
Speaker 2: miles away or five feet away. Every night, when I
Speaker 2: got back to the hotel after recording with Robert and Sophie,
Speaker 2: I would once again check a Grinder to see if
Speaker 2: any unlucky delegates were put up in the hotels by
Speaker 2: the airport. The hotel we were staying at was also
Speaker 2: home to the Idaho and North Dakota delegates, and though
Speaker 2: I don't believe anyone from our hotel was on Grinder,
Speaker 2: save for maybe an anonymous profile or two, there definitely
Speaker 2: were RNC attendees at some of the nearby hotels roughly
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred feet away from my bed. The Grinder proximity
Speaker 2: detector was quite useful to me and locating profiles act
Speaker 2: around the footprint of the r and C, as well
Speaker 2: as when sorting through all my messages back home to
Speaker 2: confirm who attended the rn C from out of state.
Speaker 2: Because Milwaukee is about six hundred and fifty miles away
Speaker 2: from Atlanta, if someone's distance marker was substantially different from that,
Speaker 2: I could assume that they were in Milwaukee for the
Speaker 2: r and C from out of state, even if I
Speaker 2: wasn't able to confirm through any brief text exchange. I've
Speaker 2: also done my best to follow up with certain profiles
Speaker 2: to rule out possibilities of secondary traveling or other random
Speaker 2: reasons for why their distance markers might not line up exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think they have it narrowed down pretty well. Okay,
Speaker 2: you've been very patient, and now I think it's time
Speaker 2: to read through the highlights from my grinder in box.
Speaker 2: And I gotta say I think I started off pretty strong.
Speaker 2: While attending the RNC kickoff party the night before the
Speaker 2: convention officially started, I got one of the very first
Speaker 2: messages I received from a twenty one year old Republican
Speaker 2: with the profile picture that's just a close up picture
Speaker 2: of a dark suit with a dark blue shirt and
Speaker 2: vgenta tie, already horrendous vibes. He asked me if I
Speaker 2: was quote unquote with the GOP and I said I
Speaker 2: was attending with friends, and then I got no further response.
Speaker 2: I saw this guy online throughout the convention, and then
Speaker 2: after the convention was over, he moved like three hundred
Speaker 2: miles away, so I'm pretty sure he was there for
Speaker 2: the RNC. I got a message from someone who identified
Speaker 2: himself as a local conservative quote but not a hardcore
Speaker 2: Republican unquote, and he was excited the convention was in town,
Speaker 2: hopeful that he would quote meet my future husband unquote.
Speaker 2: The first chaser I encountered with the bio looking for
Speaker 2: some lady dick to feel in my ass, saw through
Speaker 2: my sister gender disguise and messaged me cock question mark.
Speaker 2: I got one other message from a chaser who was
Speaker 2: pretending to be Tea for Tea, who asked me if
Speaker 2: I was in town for Kitsu Khan an Anima in
Speaker 2: Green Bay. A nice local messaged me, quote hope you're
Speaker 2: finding what you're looking for, smiley face, which was very
Speaker 2: nice and just kind of amusing if you consider that
Speaker 2: he thought I was just a gay Republican looking for
Speaker 2: some other gay Republican. Another local with the name older
Speaker 2: for young sent me the message quote boomer, who will
Speaker 2: talk politics with you or we can just fuck. I
Speaker 2: asked him if the quote unquote talk politics pickup line
Speaker 2: works very often, and he replied quote less often than
Speaker 2: I would hope for On here zero unquote, he mentioned
Speaker 2: that he had noticed some convention attendees on the app
Speaker 2: telling me that they have infiltrated Grinder. He then asked
Speaker 2: me what exact hotel I was staying at. So that
Speaker 2: was the end of that conversation. A minority of the
Speaker 2: Milwaukee locals who messaged me identified themselves as conservatives and
Speaker 2: were largely excited that the RNC was in town. They
Speaker 2: vicariously questioned me about how the convention was going, as
Speaker 2: most were disappointed that they themselves cannot attend. One such
Speaker 2: fellaw who described Trump's first RNC entrance as electric and
Speaker 2: a very emotional moment for him and the entire crowd unquote,
Speaker 2: would have liked to attend, but he was busy working
Speaker 2: at the hospital because they needed quote extra staffing just
Speaker 2: in case unquote. Now, the worst profile picture I found
Speaker 2: was an older guy wearing a baseball camp and one
Speaker 2: of those half faced skull masks like Adam Offfen used
Speaker 2: to wear. He said he was from Florida and claimed
Speaker 2: to be in town not for the RNC but to
Speaker 2: visit family, and mentioned that Vance had completely sold out
Speaker 2: his morals for the VP spot. This guy's politics were impenetrable.
Speaker 2: Maybe this was just like your average Florida Independent. Very
Speaker 2: baffling fella. A younger guy messaged me, asking you're a
Speaker 2: Republican and I said not really putting it lightly, and
Speaker 2: he never got back to me. I did find a
Speaker 2: thirty one year old chaser named Greg who I do
Speaker 2: believe was attending the convention and his bio read quote Anon,
Speaker 2: come drain me trans CD as crossdresser sissy fem to
Speaker 2: the front of the line. I asked, you like trans
Speaker 2: and he responded yes. We had no further conversation. I
Speaker 2: did talk with two other people who happened to be
Speaker 2: covering the convention, including one guy who thought I was
Speaker 2: with CNN because the Grinder proximity sensor put me near
Speaker 2: the CNN area when I was actually using Grinder at
Speaker 2: the Heritage Foundation party. And lastly, really the only guy
Speaker 2: I saw who openly claims to be attending the RNC
Speaker 2: in his public bio was a thirty two year old
Speaker 2: from Shreveport, Louisiana with the user name suck me Off
Speaker 2: one Word. He described the convention as exhausting but awesome
Speaker 2: and told me he was quote proud to support President
Speaker 2: Trump unquote and called Trump's speech on the final day amazing.
Speaker 2: A lot of the RNZ speakers, including Trump, talked about
Speaker 2: Corey Compretour, the man who was killed at the Trump
Speaker 2: rally during the attempted assassination. So after mister suck me
Speaker 2: Off talked about how awesome Trump's speech was, I just
Speaker 2: replied to him, poor Corey, and he messaged me back
Speaker 2: Corey who, and that he told me what exact hotel
Speaker 2: he was staying at. Now, part of the danger of
Speaker 2: trying to use Grinder directly in the middle of the RNC,
Speaker 2: even discreetly, is that even if I'm hunched over on
Speaker 2: my phone, there is a non zero chance that some
Speaker 2: passer by or person sitting right above me might catch
Speaker 2: a glimpse of an unsolicited dickpic that fills my phone
Speaker 2: screen as I try to check my messages. And this
Speaker 2: is simply a non negotiable part of the Grinder experience.
Speaker 2: Whatever you do, grainy, unflattering, bizarrely angled photos of some balding,
Speaker 2: forty three year old married man will appear in your inbox. Ordinarily,
Speaker 2: I would check the profile first to see who might
Speaker 2: be sending me a photo, to weed out the undesirable
Speaker 2: prospects before even considering to open up a DM. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: multiple factors prevented me from doing this. For one, this
Speaker 2: was research, so I needed to collect the most amount
Speaker 2: of data possible. But moreover, even if I still wanted
Speaker 2: to vet for applicable profiles in my dms, this was
Speaker 2: impossible without opening up each DM individually and clicking through
Speaker 2: to their profile from the chatlog. Due to one of
Speaker 2: the many glitches I experienced using Grinder at the RNC,
Speaker 2: about halfway through the week, the app started crashing pretty frequently.
Speaker 2: But the main glitch I had to deal with, which
Speaker 2: has since been fixed, is that I could not access
Speaker 2: anyone's profile from the DM's page. I had to click
Speaker 2: into each individual chat log to open up a user profile,
Speaker 2: which meant I had to look at a lot more
Speaker 2: unsolicited Dick pics before even being able to check anyone's profile.
Speaker 2: So there I was watching Ted Cruise's speech, sitting underneath
Speaker 2: about fifty Republicans and right next to both of my bosses,
Speaker 2: scrolling through an endless stream of dick pics to see
Speaker 2: who was local and who was here for the R
Speaker 2: and C, hoping that whatever Republican voter from Alabama wasn't
Speaker 2: looking over my shoulder at the plethora of dimly lit hog,
Speaker 2: but I was far from the only one reporting issues
Speaker 2: with the app during the r and C. Around midday
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, the second day of the convention, over one
Speaker 2: thousand users reported a Grinder outage in the Milwaukee area
Speaker 2: on the website down Detector. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote
Speaker 2: on the final day of the r and C that
Speaker 2: quote reports that the Grinder app crashing increased by more
Speaker 2: than ninety percent in the past forty eight hours across
Speaker 2: the country unquote. The down detector heat map showed grinder
Speaker 2: outages in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, as well
Speaker 2: as a hot spot of outages in Milwaukee near the
Speaker 2: end of the convention, indicating users were experience and some
Speaker 2: issues with the app, possibly due to an increase in activity,
Speaker 2: and you will hear more about that activity after this
Speaker 2: ad break. This episode of It Could Happen Here is
Speaker 2: brought to you in part by the Challenger's soundtrack remix
Speaker 2: by Boys Noise, which I was listening to as I
Speaker 2: wrote most of this episode while on the plane back
Speaker 2: to Atlanta. This episode is also brought to you by
Speaker 2: these products and services. We once again returned to the grind.
Speaker 2: We got to keep on grinding. We're almost done, but
Speaker 2: we got to grind a little more. Just one more
Speaker 2: grind bro I swear about addictors. One more grind broachs,
Speaker 2: one more grind. During the influx of reports about the
Speaker 2: Grinder app breaking during the RNC, a post from the
Speaker 2: Twitter account for the Halfway Post went extremely viral, bolstering
Speaker 2: claims of a massive increase in activity. Quote breaking, an
Speaker 2: executive of the gay dating app Grinder says, the Republican
Speaker 2: National Convention is quote basically Grinder's super Bowl unquote. This
Speaker 2: quote from a Grinder executive went super viral, prompting discussions
Speaker 2: all over the Internet about five different articles and even
Speaker 2: disgraced former New York Congressman George Sentos commented on the
Speaker 2: phenomenon content warning, gay Republican.
Speaker 3: So Grinder executives are calling the R and C Convention
Speaker 3: the Grinder super Bowl. Folks. Look, I'm openly gay, no
Speaker 3: qualms about it. Proud conservative Republican. I met my husband
Speaker 3: on Grinder and we've been together for six years going
Speaker 3: on seven, married for almost three. Let me tell you something.
Speaker 3: Just come out the closet, boys, come on it's fun.
Speaker 3: You can be gay and conservative, but look, Grinder's already
Speaker 3: anyway based on the hits, and guess who's in town.
Speaker 3: It's all you conservatives.
Speaker 2: By now, I certainly did observe a lot of blank
Speaker 2: or anonymous profiles, at least more than I'm used to.
Speaker 2: I also received messages containing variations of hey sexy from
Speaker 2: at least five accounts that have since been deactivated. And
Speaker 2: this does line up with a report from a Milwaukee
Speaker 2: area Grinder user who spoke with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Speaker 2: saying that he noticed a major bump in anonymous users. Quote.
Speaker 2: On any given day, you'll go on there and see
Speaker 2: a headless torso or a blank profile, said the source,
Speaker 2: who did not want to be named. The Grinder user said,
Speaker 2: on a normal day, you'll encounter maybe ten users with
Speaker 2: no public profile. But Thursday, when he checked the app,
Speaker 2: he said he stopped counting at fifty blank profile photos unquote. Now,
Speaker 2: we don't have any official data yet on Grinder usage
Speaker 2: near the twenty twenty four R and C only the
Speaker 2: down detector reports which our user submitted, but we do
Speaker 2: at least have data from the last in person convention
Speaker 2: in Cleveland, Ohio all the way back in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: a Vice article by Candice Brian spoke with sources from
Speaker 2: Grinder and wrote that quote, Grinder usage near the Quicken
Speaker 2: Loans Arena showed a sixty six percent increase during the RNC.
Speaker 2: Other active destinations including Times Square, Capitol Hill, Disneyland, South Beach,
Speaker 2: and Trump Tower showed no comparable increase in active users. Unquote.
Speaker 2: Many of the local twinks and trans folks certainly were
Speaker 2: concerned about possible RNC freaks hiding on the app. People
Speaker 2: would often first ask me if I was a Republican
Speaker 2: or why I was in town before trying to hit
Speaker 2: on me. One such twink told me, quote, I would
Speaker 2: be surprised if you were a delegate or something, but
Speaker 2: I had to check. As the week progressed, more locals
Speaker 2: told me that they had found a handful of out
Speaker 2: and proud patriots online, but really not many. In fact,
Speaker 2: multiple Milwaukee locals I chatted with on Grinder did claim
Speaker 2: to notice an uptick in users, but mostly recognizable local
Speaker 2: users who were online for the same reason I was
Speaker 2: to see if there was an influx of closeted Republicans.
Speaker 2: Someone told me quote for the record, it's like three
Speaker 2: times busier here than normal. Everyone is out to see
Speaker 2: what the Republicans are up to, and the chasers have
Speaker 2: come out of the woodwork unquote. Far from being the
Speaker 2: app's super Bowl. According to Weiss, the twenty sixteen rnc's
Speaker 2: sixty six percent bump in activity is less than one
Speaker 2: half of the increase in Grinder activity that was seen
Speaker 2: at the last in person DNC, an event which was
Speaker 2: also a whole day shorter i'lade from Wess. Quote. However,
Speaker 2: from Sunday to Monday, the week of the Democratic National Convention,
Speaker 2: there was an even higher one hundred and forty eight
Speaker 2: percent increase in activity around the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia. Quote.
Speaker 2: It's also worth noting that of that sixty six percent
Speaker 2: increase in activity around the twenty sixteen r and C,
Speaker 2: only about forty percent of those users were visiting Cleveland,
Speaker 2: most were locals. Meanwhile, sixty percent of Grinder users active
Speaker 2: near the DNC in Philadelphia were visiting the city. Oh
Speaker 2: and that quote from a Grinder executive calling the RNZ
Speaker 2: Grinder's a super Bowl, as well as George Sandos's other
Speaker 2: claim about Grinder purposely outing gay conservatives. Both of those
Speaker 2: claims originate from Twitter satire accounts.
Speaker 1: It is totally made up, pure fiction. It's fiction. It's fiction.
Speaker 3: We made it up. We made this one up.
Speaker 2: It's a made up tail.
Speaker 1: It's a total fabrication. It never happened.
Speaker 2: It's an urban legend that never happened. So no, the
Speaker 2: RNC is not Grinder's a super Bowl. I got messages
Speaker 2: from over one hundred and fifty different people. Over ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the messages I received and profiles visible online
Speaker 2: even while inside the Pfizer forum were from locals completely
Speaker 2: unaffiliated with the rn Z and any boost activity that
Speaker 2: can be attributed to people this for the RNC is
Speaker 2: a minuscule drop in the bucket compared to the proverbial
Speaker 2: orgy festival of out of town gay Democrats who travel
Speaker 2: to the DNC and like, if you think about this logically,
Speaker 2: this shouldn't at all be surprising. The Republican Party has
Speaker 2: spent the past two years screaming about how all drag
Speaker 2: queens are child groomers, and though this was the first
Speaker 2: year the GOP has removed opposition to gay marriage from
Speaker 2: their party platform, they have massively increased their opposition to
Speaker 2: and attacks against trans people, and really any display of
Speaker 2: a visible queerness, like come on, this is the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: There's this kind of fucked up cultural conception that homophobic
Speaker 2: politicians must be so because they are secretly gay. And
Speaker 2: while there is the occasional like Lindsey Graham or repressed
Speaker 2: homosexual preacher, this is not the norm and all Republicans
Speaker 2: being secretly gay is not the driving force of legislative homophobia.
Speaker 2: It is an idea log drive largely in furtherance of
Speaker 2: hegemonic Christian nationalism, and now for people like Elon Musk
Speaker 2: and more young Republicans of fascistic notion of reproductive futurism
Speaker 2: built on fears that young people white people aren't having
Speaker 2: enough white babies, which they partially attribute to society becoming
Speaker 2: more accepting of gay and trans people, resulting in people
Speaker 2: having less reproductive or heterosexual sex. Never mind the fact
Speaker 2: that queer and trans people oftentimes can and do have children,
Speaker 2: which still doesn't seem to please these conservatives, as it
Speaker 2: doesn't align with their traditionalist view of the family unit.
Speaker 2: So No Grinder wasn't flooded with closeted Republicans because there
Speaker 2: simply isn't that many closeted Republicans that are going to
Speaker 2: be attending the RNC. And while there may not be
Speaker 2: as many Republicans as I thought there might be, I
Speaker 2: do believe that I have the bump in activity, albeit
Speaker 2: a smaller bump than rumored. Basically figured out based on
Speaker 2: my anecdotal experience and the reports of a handf of
Speaker 2: local Grinder users and journalists I talked with who were
Speaker 2: online during the twenty twenty four rn C, and considering
Speaker 2: the twenty sixteen Grinder data, I can report that merely
Speaker 2: a small minority of activity was due to ordinary RNZ attendees.
Speaker 2: The majority of activity was from locals who either regularly
Speaker 2: used Grinder or were specifically curious about who might be
Speaker 2: online during the RNC. I observed two more groups that
Speaker 2: would contribute to any noticeable increase in activity. Not everyone
Speaker 2: who attends the RNC are guests or delegates. A lot
Speaker 2: of people work at the convention center or work tech,
Speaker 2: and a sizeable chunk of people are like myself, researchers, pollsters,
Speaker 2: or journalists who attend conventions like this for work. And lastly,
Speaker 2: the final group that fills out the bump in Grinder activity,
Speaker 2: one that for some reason didn't really expect to see
Speaker 2: upon arrival, but in retrospect makes total sense. Are cops
Speaker 2: so many? There were so many cops online at the RNC,
Speaker 2: just like delegates or reporters. They are coming to town
Speaker 2: from all around the country. There was cops or state
Speaker 2: troopers from Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, California, Indiana,
Speaker 2: and many more states, as well as US Capitol Police,
Speaker 2: Secret Service, TSA, DHS, and FBI. They were all in
Speaker 2: town as a part of the security detail. A few
Speaker 2: of the guys that messaged me I can absolutely confirm
Speaker 2: are one hundred percent police or some kind of military police.
Speaker 2: A thirty three year old cop or military guy quote
Speaker 2: looking for sexy bottoms with the tags jock, Military, discreete
Speaker 2: and weightlifting, as well as many pictures of him in
Speaker 2: the gym. Said it in his bio that he was
Speaker 2: quote really into slim, skinny toned, and muscular people. He
Speaker 2: messaged me saying, Hey, now, I got a lot of
Speaker 2: haze in my inbox, which is not unusual for Grinder.
Speaker 2: You will pry mostly get hay as a message as
Speaker 2: well as just like, you know, a picture of someone's penis,
Speaker 2: but between a penis and hey, those are probably the
Speaker 2: two most received messages you will get on Grinder. There
Speaker 2: was another guy with a username DL military who said
Speaker 2: in his bio he was working security for the week
Speaker 2: and that Grinder messages had completely broke for him and
Speaker 2: to instead message him on Snapchat. The DL in DL
Speaker 2: military stands for down low. It's a tag that only
Speaker 2: the worst people on Grinder will use, mainly like self
Speaker 2: hating gay men who are closeted, and it's download because
Speaker 2: they don't want to be like publicly seen being gay.
Speaker 2: Just absolutely the worst. We do not fuck with DL,
Speaker 2: both literally and figuratively. There were a bunch of other
Speaker 2: non locals who I would describe as cop types. I
Speaker 2: can't one hundred percent say for sure that they are cops,
Speaker 2: but they have like the look, you know, like the
Speaker 2: look the cop look. I don't know. They could also
Speaker 2: be like a bodyguard, a working private secure but one
Speaker 2: of these cop looking guys message to me asking if
Speaker 2: I was a trans guy, which I always love to see.
Speaker 2: It means I'm doing gender very well. And a few
Speaker 2: other cop types sent relatively boring messages so yeah, a
Speaker 2: lot of cops, which is not completely surprising considering the
Speaker 2: fact that basically half the cops in the country were
Speaker 2: at the Republican National Convention in some form or another.
Speaker 2: A few final notes, Now, this didn't really make up
Speaker 2: a sizeable chunk of the Grinder population, but after saying
Speaker 2: I was just covering the RNC, a couple people on Grinder,
Speaker 2: just completely unprompted, told me that they were attending the
Speaker 2: protests against the RNC. Please do not do this. That's
Speaker 2: a horrible idea for multiple reasons. You gotta stop talking
Speaker 2: about your political activities on dating apps, especially Grinder, especially
Speaker 2: at the RNC. Horrible idea. Do not do this. And
Speaker 2: despite my lazy attempt at a young Republican disguised online profile,
Speaker 2: a few too many people did recognize me from Twitter
Speaker 2: or the pod, but they were very nice. They gave
Speaker 2: me some recommendations for what gay bars to check out
Speaker 2: after convention hours, and one person told me this interesting
Speaker 2: anecdote that I'd like to share. Quote, I don't think
Speaker 2: Trump is going to win. I can missed for Hillary
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, and at least here it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: the same. Unquote I thought That was a little interesting
Speaker 2: tinbit that I received at probably round three am on grinder.
Speaker 2: So there you go. Anyway, that was my RNC grinder experience.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to report it is not the hotbed of
Speaker 2: closeted Republicans that we mean it to be. It's mostly
Speaker 2: local gaze, a few reporters and a few more cops.
Speaker 2: I do not think I'll be reporting on the DNC grinder,
Speaker 2: but I am curious to see if there is a
Speaker 2: sizeable increase in activity as compared to the RNZ grinder,
Speaker 2: So I guess I will maybe posted by that on
Speaker 2: Twitter at Hungry bow Tie if you want updates on that. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there. Be careful if you're ever on grinder.
Speaker 2: Please especially don't tell someone covering the RNC that you're
Speaker 2: attending any protests. But in general, be careful on these
Speaker 2: types of dating apps and I will see you on
Speaker 2: the other side. Message from Quickie Grinder said you were
Speaker 2: super close yesterday. Wasn't stalking? I promise? Message from birthday
Speaker 2: present emoji. I almost thought you were Josh Thomas. Message
Speaker 2: from anonymous wait are you pro or anti Republican? I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna lie. I mainly asked your politics because I
Speaker 2: thought you were cute, but I didn't want to hit
Speaker 2: on a Trumper message from older for young. Aren't all
Speaker 2: the delegates propositioning you? You're cute? Message from anonymous? Why
Speaker 2: establish a totalitarian state if I can't breed? It's a
Speaker 2: dictator message from suck me off. I'm down for anything. Lol?
Speaker 2: Are you supporting? Ha ha?
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