Shakespeare famously wrote that âhell is empty, all the devils are here,â and according to reports, they all gathered at the Republican National Convention (RNC) from 15 July to 18 July 2024. The nation was watching eagerly as Donald Trump confirmed JD Vance as his running mate, his bitter primary rival Nikki Haley bowed down and kissed the ring, and the former president’s supporters donned assassination-inspired ear badges. Interestingly, however, the midwest also underwent Grindr outages at the same time, due to increased usage in towns near the convention.
Grindr, as we all know, is a popular dating app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people, geared specifically towards gay men.
Users noted that the app crashed on Tuesday 16 July, after a spike of users around Milwaukee, Wisconsin where the RNC was held. The outage was reported by more than 1,000 users in the area.
This led a lot of netizens to speculate that the famously homophobic party might have more queer members than previously assumed, some potentially closeted. Thus, the event was quickly dubbed as the âGrindr Superbowlâ. Has a nice ring to it, doesnât it?
George Santos, an openly gay diva and disgraced former Republican congressman, even took it upon himself to share a very special message with attendees of the convention.
Santos posted his thoughts on the outage on X (formerly Twitter): âSo Grindr executives are calling the RNC convention âGrindrâs Super Bowlâ,â he said in a video.
âIâm openly gay, no qualms about it, proud conservative Republican,â he continued. âLet me tell you something: Just come out of the closet boys! Come on, itâs fun! You can be gay and conservative. But look, but look Grindr is always outing you anyways based on the hits. And guess whoâs in town? Itâs all you conservatives. Bye!â
Santos was referring to a post by the satirical account The Halfway Post which claimed as a joke that âan executiveâ at Grindr told them that the Republican National Convention is âbasically Grindrâs Super Bowl.â
Surprisingly, the former congressman also shared his own love story that started on Grindr: âI met my husband on Grindr and weâve been together six years going on seven, married for almost three.â Touching.
Of course, queer Republicans have always existed. In fact, Melania Trump recently served as a host for a fundraiser for Log Cabin Republicans, the nationâs largest Republican organisation dedicated to representing LGBTQIA+ conservatives and allies.
Still, Republicans identities have always been quite controversial within the queer community due to the partyâs horrifying track record of eroding rights for the community based on antiquated, conservative family ideals.
In 2017, the LGBTQIA+ lobbying group Human Rights Campaign bought a geo-specific ad for men using Grindr while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
The ad read: âYou canât be with us in the hotel room and against us in the CPAC ballroom.â