Gay dating app Grindr has threatened to out the names of every Republican legislator and party official with an account there if the GOP “doesn’t stop passing homophobic and transphobic laws,” and progressive Twitter has gone wild with approval.
“THIS is the kind of action we need from businesses daily,” wrote one Twitter user, even though, technically, Grindr could really only do this for 50 days. Fifty-one if the District of Columbia gets statehood.
Youth Victory Fund founder Elijah Manley went one better and claimed that “I already know half of them that do.” Either Manley has great connections or he’s out partying every night.
To be fair, others were less thrilled: “Can’t see any legit company which servers the gay community forcing people out of the closet.” Indeed. A company that breaks its own terms of service and outs its own users isn’t going to stay in business very long.
And yet some couldn’t wait to share the news with their least-favorite conservatives. One user named Concerned Citizen repeated and tagged “Christ First” former Delaware GOP senate nominee Lauren Witzke with it.
Still others couldn’t help but notice the blatant hypocrisy:
Shouldn’t they be praised by the left for being LGBT? I thought gay was a good thing to lefties. Suddenly you’re using it as a threat? Interesting
— Cognitive Dissident (@STP48315) March 23, 2023
For what it’s worth, Grindr was fined $11 million by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority in 2001 for illegally sharing user data with advertisers. Still, that’s a far cry from outing closeted public officials.
Curiously, no one bothered to point to exactly what “homophobic and transphobic” legislation Florida has passed. “Don’t say gay” isn’t a thing [Caught: the link goes to a Twitter thread of mine where I had to drop two f-bombs], no matter how many times the major news outlets repeat that particular slur.
There’s just one problem: Grindr made no such threat. The gay affair began with a single satirical tweet from The Halfway Post, “halfway true comedy and satire” from comedian Dash MacIntyre. “I don’t report the facts,” Halfway’s Twitter profile explains. “I improve them.”
BREAKING: The gay dating app Grindr says if Florida doesn’t stop passing homophobic and transphobic laws, they’ll reveal every Republican legislator and party official who secretly uses the app.
— The Halfway Post (@HalfwayPost) March 22, 2023
This one tweet has been viewed [Dr. Evil Voice On] FIVE MILLION TIMES [Dr. Evil Voice Off] since midday Tuesday, and it isn’t even lunchtime on Wednesday here in Colorado where I live. Twenty-thousand retweets and 152,000 likes.
And counting.
Assuming that most of those likes and whatnot come from tweeps who didn’t notice the satire, that’s an awful lot of egg on a whole lot of faces.
I scrolled a bit through The Halfway Post and MacIntyre’s feeds and, sadly, the material from the comic and the satire page wasn’t all that funny or satirical — mostly just lefty wishcasting masquerading as jokes.
But MacIntyre sure delivered the laughs today. You just have to wonder if he meant to deliver them at his own side’s expense.
Nah. You don’t wonder that at all, do you?
