Hands up who wants to carry around a pocket full of hot guys. Oh wait….
Do you like this story?
It’s Mardi Gras this weekend in Sydney and you can be that the Grindr iphone app is going to get a good…..workout. I’ve been meaning to tell you about this for a few weeks ever since it became my new party trick but I keep forgetting.
I was at dinner with friends about a month ago and they were telling me how they’d gone away for the weekend with a gay friend of theirs. Bored in a small coastal town on Saturday night, he’d whipped out his iphone and opened Grindr which is basically a way to find gay guys in the immediate vicinity.
It works like this, you join (for free) and upload a photo of yourself or a part of your body (that’s popular although I’ve not seen anything rude, just a lot of six packs and the occasional bottom). Then, Grindr uses the GPS built into your phone to detect other Grindr members who are nearby.
It then comes up with a list graded from closest to farthest, telling you how many metres or kilometres they are and whether they’re online. With one click you can then chat to them and (I imagine), arrange to….meet up. Presumably to shake hands and have a cup of tea together. I don’t know for sure because I’ve never gone further than just looking at the photos. And also because, you know, I’m not a gay man.
After downloading the app (but not uploading a photo of myself for obvious reasons – hello BOOBIES), I was at a girls dinner a week later and was showing everyone how Grindr worked. The nearest Grindr guy was only 10m away! Had I been an actual gay man looking to make a new friend, I could have asked him if he was in the restaurant and arranged to catch up in the loo! How….convenient!
As more and more hetros start hearing about Grindr and downloading the app to take a look, it surely raises a few concerns for any closeted guys who are living a double life. Imagine sitting with a bunch of people, clicking on a photo that looked familiar, noticing they were less than 1m away and discovering it was someone at your table. That would be many shades of awkward.
Here’s Stephen Fry talking about it on Top Gear…..
Happy Mardi Gras to everyone in the gay community. If you’re an actual user of Grindr or similar app, PLEASE tell us more about it.
What apps are you loving at the moment?
Bf just downloaded app. It’s amazing! There are like 4 guys within a kilometre!
loading...
hmm.. how many closeted gay guys are going to get caught.. wives will download the app on their iphones to see if their husbands/boyfriends are on it.
loading...
I think Grindr is awesome! Although I’m not a guy guy, so I’ll settle for my latest App obsession: Sleep Cycle. It monitors your sleeping patterns each night and then when you set your alarm it finds the best time within a half hour to wake you up according to how light/heavy you’re sleeping. It’s so good, I’ve been waking up so refreshed!
loading...
LOVE Sleep Cycle! And then I look at the graph and see how much I’ve been dreaming/how much deep sleep I’ve had!
loading...
Aw, that is such a cute, neat idea! How utterly convienient!
loading...
This is utterly irrelevant, but I like this quote anyway: No one gives a shit what your cell phone does. You didn’t invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that.
I tell it to all those obnoxious people who bring their phones out at dinner to search Wiki. You are taking away all the fun by looking up facts. You are ruining the debate with knowledge people!!!
loading...
Oh, don’t get me started on iPhone Apps!!!
I am ADDICTED!!!
My current favourite is one called “Cardstar”.
I had so many loyalty cards from boutiques, Priceline, supermarkets, etc, that I had to get an extra wallet to carry all of them – until I discovered this little app!
Basically, for any card that has a barcode, you can type in the barcode number, and either save it under an already pre-loaded template (Priceline, Fitness First and Woolies Rewards are in there), or create a new entry, and categorise it according to Retail/Gym/Health/Liquor, etc…
Then… when you’re at the checkout, whip out your iPhone and hand it to the cashier, and they can scan the barcode from the screen of your phone!!! MAGIC!
loading...
AND… the Internet Movie Database have just released an iPhone App for Australian iPhone users!!! Used to be only for American iPhones!
loading...
AND AND… There’s an App for the Oscars (predict the winners, watch trailers of nominated films/actors, etc…), NRMA Assist – which sends your GPS co-ordinates to the NRMA Roadside Assist, there’s “WC Finder”, which can tell you the proximity of the nearest toilet anywhere in the world (and very easy to upload a new Loo, if you know of one that’s not on there!), and “Web MD” – where you can have fun at parties diagnosing your friends with all sorts of ailments and diseases!!
loading...
OK, this is my last rant, I promise!
There’s “Food Advisor”, which tells you what restaurants nearby got done by the Health Department, when, and why; there’s “Sushipedia” which is an encylopedia of different sushi rolls (great for Sushi Train places!!), any “Words With Friends”, where you can play scrabble against your friends, no matter where in teh world they are!!!
Rant over now… Dang I love my iPhone!
loading...
OMG!! I LOVE MY IPHONE APPS TOO!!! I think in 1.4 years i have spent well over $2000 on Apps, Music, Videos, Movies, TV Shows! I LOVE IT! My fav app atm is something called “Yoink” its this fun little app that is like Ebay, except all the stuff are free! So you can list things you don’t want, and people can browse through them according to location, then pick up upon contact! Its a good environmentally way to get rid of your old unwanted stuff!
loading...
OK OK OK!! You have convinced me! I was umming and ahhing whether to get one, now I MUST get one!
loading...
can we start a SAHM looking for coffee app like Grindr?
loading...
While it’s certainly (overwhelmingly) the case that most gay guys will use this app for hooking up for casual sex, and I daresay that’s the primary intention of the app’s designers, please don’t stereotype all interactions on this medium to being so. I met my current boyriend through Grindr – he was 477kms away at the time – and we’ve been insanely happy together for the past few months.
Tellingly, though, we’ve both since deleted the app. Neither of us are interested in looking elsewhere anymore.
I guess when it comes down to it, Grindr isn’t that different from any equivalent gay online dating/hookup site, only it’s more convenient. Which can pretty much be said of any iPhone app, no? I don’t really understand the fuss and scandal it seems to cause among the hetero folk, but then again I guess the gay community were also early adopters when it came to online dating – there is still something of a stigma attached to that activity in the straight community. It’s something novel and new, but I expect the novelty will pass when people get used to the idea of others knowing where they are based on their phone usage (eg. the foursquare app).
loading...
I heart Stephen Fry big time. I’d get the app just to stalk him really…sigh….
loading...
Oh me too – in fact I’ll fight you for him! For some reason I always get the biggest crushes on gay men, and I have a whopper of a crush on Stephen.
loading...
He’s my surprising celebrity shag on another thread
loading...
Grindr is certainly worth talking about, but all your trailing off ellipses and sarcastic suggestions about “presumably to shake hands and have a cup of tea together” are rather sneering about those who use it, IMO. Just call it what it is Mia: an app that facilitates gay hookups.
loading...
I don’t think that was the tone of the article, casual encounters are not usually of a serious nature so why treat it as such. I think it was to be taken lightly, not sneeringly.
loading...
actually I thought that was really funny! humour doesn’t have to equal judgement.
loading...
Beatnik,
Since I don’t have first hand experience of using Grindr to its full capacity, I didn’t want to presume to know exactly how it worked.
Was hoping some gay MM readers could enlighten us to the specifics….
loading...
Interesting idea (the app), but agree with Beatnik
loading...
I’ve been using Grindr for a week whilst staying in Adelaide. Most guys are pretty keen to ‘meet up’.
It usually takes about four sentences to reach “Pic trade?” or “Got pics” it’s a picture of downstairs followed by “Face pic?” where you share a picture of your face. Who knows which is more important.
Not planning to meet anyone myself I’ve talked to a lot of clossetted guys who seem to get a lot of comfort knowing that they are surrounded by 15 gays within 5km.
In the ‘small town’ mind of Adelaide I can really see the benefit.
loading...
Thanks for explaining. I’m amused by the fact that the ‘downstairs’ pictures is usually first, before the face.
loading...
That is a hoot – and must make it so much easier for gay guys to meet each other and bypass any potential awkward moments “wondering is he gay too?”
Is is mainly for “casual encounters” do you think? Is there a similar application for people looking for relationships?
Intriguing
loading...
what will they think of next?
loading...