It works in much the same way as Scruff or Grindr, but with some additional features like more photos and the ability to see who’s been looking at your profile. Jack’d presents itself as an alternative to the divisiveness of other gay dating apps, and there’s proportionally more POC on there. Jack’dĪs mentioned, when you get a lot of guys together, bigotry tends to rear its ugly head and send you unsolicited nudes. Having sponsored the Pit Crew in the sixth season of Rupaul’s Drag Race, Scruff secured its position in the psyches of gay men everywhere, and it’s worth checking it out for this alone. However, if you see the word Scruff and don’t immediately shout ‘Oh Scruff Pit Crew’ in your best Mama Ru voice, then why are we even doing this?
Scruff is hookup oriented, but does have a ‘match’ function if you’re looking for dates.īeing slightly more niche appeal than Grindr, Scruff doesn’t have the same critical mass of users, nor the cultural clout. If masculinity isn’t high on your list of priorities, I wouldn’t necessarily look here. As with Grindr, the amount of users has diluted its USP, so it’s not exclusively ‘scruffy’ guys on there, just mainly, and still overwhelmingly masc. Scruff has been on the scene almost as long as Grindr, so it’s also amassed a large user base. The age range of users skews a little older than its main rival, and they are more uniformly of the muscular persuasion. Scruff, as the name suggests, is the hairier, bearier alternative to Grindr. Basically, it isn’t going away anytime soon. Since a change at the top in 2016, Grindr has been on a one-app mission to be the centre of gay universe, with big events, an online magazine and a gay emoji keyboard.
People are also pretty trigger happy with pics, if you’re into that sort of thing. You can also be as anonymous as you want or as open as you’d like with your gender, preferred pronouns and status.
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A lot of this stems from the fact that users have license to be incredibly specific about their wants and desires, which apparently for some people means being specifically terrible.Īwful behaviour aside, there are a lot of pros to Grindr.
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If you’re using the free version, be willing to suppress your rage at the incessant ads.Īs is also the case with large gatherings of people, there’s a lot of bigotry and generally unacceptable behaviour on Grindr. All you need to do to get started is sign up, set your preferences and scroll through guys close by. That being said, if you’re looking for a brief encounter, Grindr will do the job, as it’s more of a free-for-all than some other apps with little restriction on who you can talk to. As is the case anywhere a lot of people gather, there’s something on Grindr for everyone – from one night stands and fuckbuddies to long term relationships.
Experts have expressed concern about the sharing of such data, with some calling it risky in extreme circumstances.The general consensus is that Grindr is only for hookups, but this isn’t necessarily true. These businesses use the data for advertising and marketing purposes.Įven today many are not open about their sexual orientation and in some places being gay still carries risk, so this breach of privacy can be very dangerous. In 2020, a Norwegian consumer group also reported that apps like Grindr and OkCupid share personal information like user location and sexuality with approximately 100 businesses. A user's location data can also provide clues to their identity, such as their work and home addresses.Īlso read | Gay dating app Grindr disappears from China's app stores The location data, however, allows users to infer things like specific users and romantic encounters based on their proximity to a particular location. The data is believed to not contain personal information like names and phone numbers. Watch | Gravitas: Online dating scams surge during the pandemicĬiting people familiar with the matter, the journal said that “The precise movements of millions of users of the gay-dating app Grindr were collected from a digital advertising network and made available for sale." This is despite the fact that the corporation claims to have stopped sending location data to ad networks.
The data has been available for roughly five years, since 2017, and the article indicates that past data may still be available.