Getty (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The world’s most famous dating app for queer and bisexual men has been experiencing outage issues since early Thursday morning, according to the website Outage.Report, and the Twitterverse is not happy.
“Grindr is down. This could be the very end of queer culture as we know it,” said user @DickGariepy.
Users are reporting on social media that they cannot sign into the app and are receiving messages like “ERROR an error occurred; please refresh or restart.” Others have complained that the app won’t connect to wifi, they can’t use the messaging system or they can’t refresh the app.
According to Down Detector, another source that tracks outages for websites and mobile apps, about 36 percent of Grindr users were affected by log-in issues, while 47 percent had issues connecting to the server.
Most of the outage reports came from users located Australia, U.K., U.S., Canada and Singapore, but the U.K. and Europe seemed to be most affected due to the timing; Grindr traffic peaks during lunch hours.
Outage.reports received over 550 reports since the outage began at around 7:00 a.m. EST, while Down Detector received over a thousand. As of 8:45 a.m. EST, users on Outage.Reports had begun posting that they were now able to successfully access the app.
Grindr is hugely popular among the LGBTQ community, which is reflected in the panicked tweets throughout the outage, which lasted less than two hours.
“IS @Grindr DOWN FOR EVERYONE OR JUST ME? #freakingout,” wrote @JackPanebianco.
IS @Grindr DOWN FOR EVERYONE OR JUST ME? #freakingout
“#gayculture is when you watch gay twitter have a literal meltdown when they discover @Grindr is down.” chimed in @jntaylor91.
#gayculture is when you watch gay twitter have a literal meltdown when they discover @Grindr is down.
“What a time for it to crash. Just when I was chatting to a fit polish lad ! Come on sort it out quick,” added @antybrik80.
https://twitter.com/antybrik80/status/928597544174800897
Upon news that access to the dating service app had been restored, many users expressed joy. “PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: grindr is working , I repeat grindr is working Go find your sugar daddies,” said @JaySays98.
The app, which allows users to connect with like-minded people in their physical vicinity, has become something of a pop culture icon in recent years. In July 2016, VICE published an article entitled, “Gay Nightlife Is Dying and Grindr and Gentrification Are to Blame” in which they examine the struggling nightclub industry and the reasons why the gay community has begun to abandon it.
“[M]any gay clubs are quite tacky. The music’s not great and the people who are there tend to be off their faces and messy. So why would I go? If I want sex, I can just go on Grindr,” an HR exec named Brad told the publication.
VICE also spoke to club owners, promoters and DJs about why they thought the industry was failing, and many pointed fingers at the popular dating app. “So-called social apps like Grindr and our modern obsession with wealth reflect a language of surface, greed, and image,” said former Queer Nation DJ Jeffrey Hinton.
https://twitter.com/danwardUK/status/928610663643131904
While the nightclub industry may partly blame Grindr for its flagging revenue, the app is clearly here to stay judging by the collective sigh of relief from Twitter users after regaining access.