Internet Dubs The Republican Convention ‘Grindr Superbowl’ After App Outages
The internet has dubbed the Republican National Convention (RNC) the ‘Grindr Superbowl’ after the app has reportedly been heavily crashing since the convention recently began in Milwaukee.
The Republican National Convention began earlier this week, with high-profile Republican politicians and conservative speakers such as former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s son Eric, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson.gracing the stage.
Today is the last day of the Convention. Former president Donald Trump appeared on stage today, and is expected to accept the presidential nomination for the Republican party.
The site Downdetector showed that Grindr has had a high level of outage reports in major cities such as New York City, Washing DC, Chicago – and in the last week, Milwaukee.
More than 1000 users reported outages of the gay hookup app in the Milwaukee on Tuesday.
With users from the area reporting heavy outages, the internet was quick to point out the connection between recent outages and the beginning of the RNC.
huh. wonder what’s happening in milwaukee right now. pic.twitter.com/CJBOflWRIo
— shauna (@goldengateblond) July 18, 2024
Just your reminder the Republican National Convention caused an outage in Grindr. This event is Grindr’s Superbowl. I won’t get into the hypocrisy, you can figure that out yourself lol
— WG Dudley__ | Streamer | Zookeeper 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 (@wildlifedudley) July 18, 2024
Gay dating app Grindr is experiencing an unprecedented 350% increase in traffic this week in the city of Milwaukee and the RNC being there is the obvious reason.
The biggest homophobic hateful bigots are often the most closeted hypocrites. 🏳️🌈
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) July 18, 2024
I saw a meme saying that @Grindr was having problems in Milwaukee, where the famously anti-LGBTQ Republican Convention is taking place.
So, I went to Downdetector, & checked myself.
IT’S REAL!
These are my screenshots, & the 1st has a timestamp in the upper left corner. pic.twitter.com/axnE8xgO7E— Ex-Evangelical Janeway🖖🥂🔍🏴☠️ (@XianJaneway) July 18, 2024
The fact that @Grindr crashed In Milwaukee makes so much more sense
— Latino 🇲🇽 Heat🔥 (@TonyBananas_) July 19, 2024
Milwaukeeans say there’s a definite rise in anon profiles
One user, who wished to remain anonymous when speaking to the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, said there has been a major rise in anonymous users recently, profiles with no faces or defining features, looking for quick hookups or flings.
“On any given day, you’ll go on there and see a headless torso or blank profile,” they said.
He told the paper that normally for the area, he’d see 10 or anon users with no profile photo, but in the last week, he “stopped counting” at 50 blank profile photos.
A video has even emerged of a Grindr user swiping through the app while allegedly sitting in the crowd at the Republican convention.
The user shows that all the profiles that came up were listed as zero miles away, which of course can’t 100% confirm that those users were attending the RNC, but it means that they were pretty close to it.
Someone flicking through Grindr at the RNC…
Grindr also said that the RNC is “basically Grindr’s Super Bowl”. pic.twitter.com/2q7ldC7Bp0— Mike Jay (@LayeredStrange) July 17, 2024
Satire site’s ‘Grindr Superbowl’ joke tricks George Santos
Satire site The Halfway Post also tricked former congressman George Santos, after he referenced a joke from the satirical site in a video.
Santos is a gay and Republican former congressman, who was expelled from Congress by vote in 2023 after countless lies about his past and allegations of fraud came to light after his election.
The Halfway Post tweet he cited said “an executive of the gay dating app Grindr says the Republican National Convention is ‘basically Grindr’s Super Bowl”.
BREAKING: An executive of the gay dating app Grindr says the Republican National Convention is “basically Grindr’s Super Bowl.”
— The Halfway Post (@HalfwayPost) July 16, 2024
Santos referenced the tweet verbatim in a video he posted to X – which is now deleted.
“So, Grindr executives are calling the RNC convention ‘the Grindr Super Bowl,'” said Santos in the video.
It’s unclear if Santos was aware of the site being satire or not.