CZM Rewind: My RNC Grindr Adventure

Summary

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Podcast Summary

It Could Happen Here — CZM Rewind: My RNC Grindr Adventure

Host: Garrison Davis (Cool Zone Media)
Date: November 26, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Garrison Davis takes listeners inside his unique investigative assignment during the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee: using Grindr, the popular gay dating/hookup app, to explore the cultural myth of closeted Republican delegates seeking furtive encounters during the RNC. Against the backdrop of increased anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric among conservatives, Garrison sets out to discover whether there's any truth to the urban legends about a secret influx of Republicans on Grindr—ultimately offering an on-the-ground, humorous, and revealing chronicle of Grindr activity at a major right-wing political event.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Mission, Preparation & Undercover Persona

• Purpose: Investigate rumors of a Republican “Grindr invasion” during the RNC in Milwaukee.
  • “For years I've heard rumors and urban legends about a massive influx of Republicans flocking to the gay hookup app Grindr to get laid during the RNC... I needed to know how many homosexual Republicans were actually logging onto Grindr.” (03:13)
• Personal Security & Image Management:
  • Garrison describes carefully crafting a less conspicuous persona, presenting as a “Young Republican” type to blend in and stay safe in a potentially hostile environment.
  • “I packed up basically all my button up collared shirts, three ties, two black suits and a beige London Fog trench coat... half Young Republican, half Roman towel boy dressed as a 1950s FBI agent. I refer to this as Dale Cooper Moting.” (05:36)
• Disguised Grindr Profile:
  • Removed trans identifiers, went for a “twinkish” photo and the username: “Twink.”
  • Bio read: "Gen Z in town for convention." (07:30)

2. Arrival & Atmosphere at the RNC

• Observations at the Airport and Convention:
  • Garrison humorously remarks on stereotypical appearances and behaviors of attendees, comparing women’s style to “cosplaying their favorite female Fox News anchor.”
  • The pervasive language: everyone referring to the event only as “the convention.”
  • “As I was boarding the plane, an older woman with straw like blonde hair sitting a few rows in front of me waved to me and asked, young man, are you going to the convention?...She would be quite disappointed to learn why I was attending.” (08:24)

3. The Grindr Experiment at the RNC

• Technical Process & Method:
  • Regularly used Grindr at key RNC locations (esp. Fiserv Forum) and his hotel (shared with Idaho and N. Dakota delegates).
  • Used Grindr’s proximity features to deduce which users might be RNC attendees.
• Categories of Users Encountered:
  • Republican delegates: Few profiles seemed affiliated, most were locals or anonymous.
  • Chasers: Several were able to “see through [my] cisgender disguise.”
  • Locals curious about RNC: Many messaged Garrison hoping he could report on goings-on or inquiring about the convention buzz.
  • Other journalists and convention staffers: Some accidental connections due to proximity.
• Notable, Often Ironic, Interactions:
  • 21-year-old GOP suit asked if Garrison was “with the GOP.” No further response after a vague answer.
  • “Older for Young” messaged with, “boomer, who will talk politics with you or we can just…” and admitted, pick-up lines rarely work: “Less often than I would hope for on here.” (17:50)
  • A user from Shreveport listed his username as “Suckmeoff,” was proud to support Trump, but didn’t know who Cory (the person killed at the Trump rally) was. (20:25)
• Hazards of the Operation:
  • Grindr’s notorious unsolicited nude photo issue created awkward moments:
    • “There is a non zero chance that some passerby or person... might catch a glimpse of an unsolicited dick pic that fills my phone screen as I try to check my messages. This is simply a non negotiable part of the Grindr experience.” (21:17)

4. Technical Glitches & Grindr Outage

• Outages:
  • Real Grindr technical issues affected the experience, with Milwaukee seeing a surge in app outages.
  • “Around midday on Tuesday, the second day of the convention, over a thousand users reported a grinder outage in the Milwaukee area on the website downdetector.” (22:20)
• Speculation:
  • Some connected it to increased RNC activity; others, including Garrison, saw it more as mild evidence of above-average use but not an extraordinary influx.

5. Evaluating the Myth: RNC as ‘Grindr’s Super Bowl’

• Viral Satire, Not Reality:
  • A tweet from a satire account claiming a Grindr exec called the RNC “Grindr’s Super Bowl” went viral, echoed by former Congressman George Santos, but was fabricated.
    • Quote: “Is totally made up. Pure fiction. It's fiction. It's fiction. We made it up. We made this one up.” (30:14)
• Actual Data:
  • Reference to 2016 convention: 66% increase in Grindr usage at the RNC, much less than the 148% jump seen at the DNC. Most activity at both conventions from locals not visitors.
• Local Sentiment:
  • Local users used Grindr not just for hookups but to “see what the Republicans are up to” out of curiosity and concern.

6. What Actually Drives RNC Grindr Activity

• Breakdown:
  • Most activity: locals, some chasers, curious users, journalists, cops and security staff—not closeted GOP delegates.
  • “No, Grindr wasn't flooded with closeted Republicans, because there simply isn't that many closeted Republicans that are going to be attending the RNC.” (31:36)
• Police Presence:
  • Significant chunk of active Grindr accounts were from visiting law enforcement officials.
    • “So many cops. There was so many cops online at the rnc...from Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, California, Indiana… as well as US Capitol Police, Secret Service, TSA, DHS and FBI.” (34:32)
  • Cop-coded users often had generic messages or used “DL” (down low) codewords indicating closeted status.

7. Advice and Reflections

• Online Safety:
  • Warns against sharing protest plans or personal political activities on dating apps, especially Grindr.
    • “That's a horrible idea for multiple reasons. You got to stop talking about your political activities on dating apps, especially Grindr. Especially at the rnc.” (36:00)
• Community Recognition:
  • Some listeners/message-senders recognized Garrison from the podcast or Twitter, offering bar recommendations and political insights.

8. Conclusions

• The RNC Grindr myth is mostly that—a myth. A slight bump in activity during the convention is driven primarily by locals, journalists, and police/security staff, not closet-case Republican delegates.
• Mentions curiosity about how the DNC will compare, referencing higher activity from past DNCs.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the RNC Grindr Myth:
  • “It's an urban legend that never happened. So no, the RNC is not Grindr's Super Bowl.” (30:25 – Garrison)
• On the actual increase in activity:
  • “I got messages from over 150 different people. Over 90% of the messages I received and profiles visible online even while inside the Pfizer forum, were from locals completely unaffiliated with the rnc.” (31:00 – Garrison)
• On closeted Republicans as the engine of homophobic policy:
  • “This is not the norm. And all Republicans, being secretly gay is not the driving force of legislative homophobia. It is an ideological drive largely in furtherance of hegemonic Christian nationalism.” (32:00 – Garrison)
• On sharing sensitive information via Grindr:
  • “Please do not do this. That's a horrible idea for multiple reasons. You got to stop talking about your political activities on dating apps, especially Grindr. Especially at the rnc. Horrible idea. Do. Do not do this.” (36:00 – Garrison)
• Sample Grindr Messages from the Convention:
  • “Aren't all the delegates propositioning you? You're cute.”
  • “Why establish a totalitarian state if I can’t breed its dictator?”
  • “Are you supporting Trump? Haha.”
    (38:10–38:50)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Mission and Preparation: 03:13 – 08:24
• First Impressions, Setting: 08:24 – 10:16
• RNC Grindr Fieldwork & Inbox Highlights: 12:52 – 21:17
• App Glitches and Media Myths: 22:20 – 30:25
• Debunking the ‘Closeted RNC Republican’ Myth: 30:25 – 33:15
• Police Presence & Cop Profiles: 34:32 – 35:55
• Final Reflections & Lessons: 36:00 – 39:00

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Takeaway

Garrison Davis’s RNC Grindr adventure unravels the myth of hordes of closeted Republican delegates swarming Grindr. Instead, the reality is far less scandalous: a collection of curious locals, journalists, and traveling law enforcement using the app amid the Republican Convention. The “super bowl” narrative is internet satire run wild, while the actual activity reflects both present-day realities of political conventions, security operations, and regional gay community curiosity. Garrison’s blend of humor, caution, and keen anthropological eye results in a revealing (and very entertaining) look at what really happens when queer tech and right-wing politics briefly share a physical space.

Transcript

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Cool Zone Media Grindr I hardly this is It Could Happen here where today the it is gay flirting and or harassment and the Here is Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the 2024 Republican National Convention. I'm Gare, also known by my undercover alias Garrison Davis, and I was lucky enough to be one of our on the ground RNC correspondents. A few weeks ago. We provided daily coverage of the GOP Coronation festival based on our conversations with delegates, lobbyists and think tank ghouls, and reported on the general trends in rhetoric used by popular speakers at the event. We'll have some more in depth episodes about those topics in the weeks to come using more of our recorded interviews we collected at the convention. But on top of our regular coverage, I also had a special assignment that I more or less assigned to myself. On this show we often talk about right wing extremism and issues facing gay and trans people, including the various ways conservatives and Christian nationalists are trying to make life harder for queer people, whether through legislation, online harassment and physical violence, as these are two of our most frequently covered topics. Being at the Republican National Convention provided me with the perfect opportunity to investigate the intersection between conservatism and homosexuality. For years I've heard rumors and urban legends about a massive influx of Republicans flocking to the gay hookup app Grindr to get laid during the RNC. Whether they be 20 year old Republican twinks from Miami or 53 year old self hating closeted gay men from Idaho trapped in loveless marriages, curiosity has often gotten the better of me and I needed to know how many homosexual Republicans were actually logging onto Grindr. In case you're unfamiliar, Grindr is technically a dating app that serves the LGBTQ community, but in actuality it is a mediocre hookup app that mostly serves as a way for strangers in their 40s to, completely unprompted, send you unflattering pictures of their penis. Grindr was launched in 2009 and is arguably the largest and most popular gay dating app, especially among men. Grindr has only been around for two in person RNCs prior to this point, 2012 and 2016 since all convention activities moved online during 2020 for the pandemic. So this July, for the first time in eight years, Republicans from all around the country could gather in one city and once their wives fell asleep Log onto Grindr in this episode, I'm gonna tell you about my RNC Grindr experience. Before traveling to the city that was about to be invaded by all of the weirdest Republicans in the country, I needed to do some prep to help ensure safety and success in my investigative endeavor. I hope you queers liked that terrible pun. Based on the massive increase in violent anti trans rhetoric coming from the gop, I already knew that I would be dusting off my old boy motor skills and going undercover as a cisgender male. Although my ability to pass as a straight male is debatable, I can at least easily pass as a not quite straight male. My transfeminine fashion taste has been skewing more masc lesbian in recent years, so clothing wasn't really an issue. I packed up basically all my button up collared shirts, three ties, two black suits and a beige London Fog trench coat. Basically the vibe I was going for was half Young Republican, half Roman towel boy dressed as a 1950s FBI agent. I refer to this as Dale Cooper Moting. I was unwilling to cut my hair to match most of the Young Republican frat boys, so I settled on styling my wavy blonde locks like Barron Trump meets Tilda Swinton in Constantine. I was kinda Gabriel maxing for most of the convention and though most attendees were unable to pick up on my Dykish undertones, the one day I wasn't wearing a tie, I did get she heard by the Secret Service when entering the convention through a security checkpoint. They're goin woke. So that was my general look for the convention. I also completely remade my Grindr profile for the rnc. For simplicity's sake I thought to emphasize my twinkish past and removed the explicitly non binary transgender aspects of my profile while replacing some of my more trans coded photos with pictures of my light Yagami and Dale Cooper cosplay. Perhaps next RNC I can experiment with discovering how many of the RNC attendees are chasers, but for safety's sake I went more stealth both online and in person at RNC related events. For my main profile picture I chose a pretty basic photo of me with disheveled hair, wearing a light gray shirt and thin black tie, looking just frankly exhausted. I chose the simple yet elegant username Twink and for my bio wrote Gen Z in town for convention, which I thought was pretty funny and signals to people that yes, I am here for the RNC but leaves the exact reason why still a bit mysterious. So this was my bait on my way to the airport. I was already dressed for the part, as I suspected the flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee would be part of the whole RNC experience. Experience. I arrived at the gate and the vibe shift was immediate. Older white men with even whiter hair wearing a mix of poorly tailored suits and country club polo shirts fit for the driving range. They all kinda looked like my Republican grandfather. The women, meanwhile, regardless of age, were all cosplaying their favorite female Fox News anchor with bleached blonde hair. There were a handful of delegates, as well as Republican super fans wearing Trump buttons and mega hats, just really excited to be going to the convention the way a nerd would be excited to go to San Diego Comic Con. Others at the gate were more subdued, perhaps not wanting to attract too much attention in the Atlanta airport, but I could still overhear them getting into quiet small talk about their RNC expectations and in hushed tones asking others at the gate if they were going to the convention. And that's what everyone called it. Not the Republican convention, not the GOP convention or the rnc. The convention. As I was boarding the plane, an older woman with straw like blonde hair sitting a few rows in front of me waved to me and asked, young man, are you going to the convention? I gave my best yes ma', am, took my seat and then heard her remark to her friend about how happy she was that more young people are attending the convention. And I would suspect she would be quite disappointed to learn why I was attending the convention and what I was doing there, mainly trying to collect as much information about these weird RNC grinder Republicans as I can. And you will hear more about those weird grinder RNC Republicans after the break. This episode is brought to you in part by the Top Gun soundtrack, which I was listening to as I was coming down from Adderall while writing the second half of this episode, as well as these products and sponsors.

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Okay, back to the grind. Most convention activities took place in the fiserv Forum, which it took about four days to learn how to pronounce. This venue is usually home to the NBA team, the Milwaukee Bucks, and this is where I would do most of my Grindr cruising so I could see other profiles within the radius of the convention area. Every time I walked into the Pfizer Forum, which was multiple times a day for four days in a row, I would find a little corner or a place to sit and discreetly boot up Grindr and refresh my feed to see what profiles were in my proximity. Now, if you're unfamiliar with Grindr, one of its more Terrifying features is the proximity detector telling you what users are near you, whether that be five miles away or five feet away. Every night when I got back to the hotel after recording with Robert and Sophie, I would once again check Grindr to see if any unlucky delegates were put up in the hotels by the airport. The hotel we were staying at was also home to the Idaho and North Dakota delegates. And though I don't believe anyone from our hotel was on Grindr, save for maybe an anonymous profile or two, there definitely were RNC attendees at some of the nearby hotels roughly 1500ft away from my bed. The Grindr proximity detector was quite useful to me in locating profiles active around the footprint of the rnc, as well as when sorting through all my messages back home to confirm who attended the RNC from out of state. Because Milwaukee is about 650 miles away from Atlanta, if someone's distance marker was substantially different from that, I could assume that they were in Milwaukee for the RNC from out of state, even if I wasn't able to confirm through any brief text exchange. I've also done my best to follow up with certain profiles to rule out possibilities of secondary traveling or other random reasons for why their distance markers might not line up exactly, and I think I have it narrowed down pretty well. Okay, you've been very patient. And now I think it's time to read through the highlights from my Grinder inbox. And I gotta say, I think I started off pretty strong. While attending the RNC kickoff party the night before the convention officially started, I got one of the very first messages I received from a 21 year old Republican with the profile picture that's just a close up picture of a dark suit with a dark blue shirt and magenta tie. Already horrendous vibes. He asked me if I was quote unquote with the gop and I said I was attending with friends. And then I got no further response. I saw this guy online throughout the convention and then after the convention was over, he moved like 300 miles away, so I'm pretty sure he was there for the rnc. I got a message from someone who identified himself as a local conservative, quote, but not a hardcore Republican, unquote, and he was excited the convention was in town, hopeful that he would meet my future husband. The first chaser I encountered with the bio, looking for some lady dick to feel in my ass, saw through my cisgender disguise and messaged me cock. I got one other message from a chaser who was pretending to be T4T who asked me if I was in town for for Kitsukon, an anime convention in Green Bay. A nice local messaged me, quote, hope you're finding what you're looking for, smiley face. Which was very nice and just kind of amusing if you consider that he thought I was just a gay Republican looking for some other gay Republican. Another local with the name Older for Young sent me the message, quote, boomer, who will talk politics with you or we can just. I asked him if the quote, unquote, talk politics pickup line works very often, and he replied, quote, less often than I would Hope for on here. 0unquote. He mentioned that he had noticed some convention attendees on the app telling me that they have infiltrated Grindr. He then asked me what exact hotel I was staying at, so that was the end of that conversation. A minority of the Milwaukee locals who messaged me identified themselves as conservatives and were largely excited that the RNC was in town. They vicariously questioned me about how the convention was going, as most were disappointed that they themselves could not attend. One such fella who described Trump's first RNC entrance as electric and a very emotional moment for him and the entire crowd would have liked to attend, but he was busy working at the hospital because they needed, quote, extra staffing just in case. Now, the worst profile picture I found was an older guy wearing a baseball cap and one of those half face skull masks like Adam often used to wear. He said he was from Florida and claimed to be in town not for the rnc but to visit family, and mentioned that Vance had completely sold out his morals for the VP spot. This guy's politics were impenetrable. Maybe this was just like your average Florida independent. Very baffling fella. A younger guy messaged me asking, you're a Republican? And I said, not really putting it lightly, and he never got back to me. I did find a 31 year old chaser named Greg who I do believe was attending the convention and his bio read, quote, anon, come drain me, Trans C D, that's crossdresser, sissy femme to the front of the line. I asked, you like trans? And he responded, yes. We had no further conversation. I did talk with two other people who happened to be covering the convention, including one guy who thought I was with CNN because the Grindr proximity sensor put me near the CNN area when I was actually using Grindr at the Heritage foundation party. And lastly, really, the only guy I saw who openly claimed to be attending the RNC in his public bio was a 32 year old from Shreveport, Louisiana with the username suck me off one word. He described the convention as exhausting but awesome, and told me he was proud to support President Trump and called Trump's speech on the final day amazing. A lot of the RNC speakers, including Trump, talked about Cory Compretor, the man who was killed at the Trump rally during the attempted assassination. So after Mr. Suck Me off talked about how awesome Trump's speech was, I just replied to him, poor Corey. And he messaged me back, cory who? And then he told me what exact hotel he was staying at. Now part of the danger of trying to use Grindr directly in the middle of the rnc, even discreetly, is that even if I'm hunched over on my phone, there is a non zero chance that some passerby or person sitting right above me might catch a glimpse of an unsolicited dick pic that fills my phone screen as I try to check my messages. This is simply a non negotiable part of the Grindr experience. Whatever you do, grainy, unflattering, bizarrely angled photos of some balding 43 year old married man will appear in your inbox. Ordinarily, I would check the profile first to see who might be sending me a photo to weed out the undesirable prospects before even considering to open up a dm. Unfortunately, multiple factors prevented me from doing this. For one, this was research, so I needed to collect the most amount of data possible. But moreover, even if I still wanted to vet for applicable profiles in my DMs, this was impossible without opening up each DM individually and clicking through to their profile from the chat log. Due to one of the many glitches I experienced using Grindr at the rnc about halfway through the week, the app started crashing pretty frequently, but the main glitch I had to deal with, which has since been fixed, is that I could not access anyone's profile from the DMs page. I had to click into each individual chat log to open up a user profile, which meant I had to look at a lot more unsolicited dick pics before even being able to check anyone's profile. So there I was, watching Ted Cruz's speech, sitting underneath about 50 Republicans and right next to both of my bosses, scrolling through an endless stream of dick pics to see who was local and who was here for the rnc, hoping that whatever Republican voter from Alabama wasn't looking over my shoulder at the plethora of dimly lit hog. But I was far from the only one reporting issues with the app during the rnc. Around midday on Tuesday, the second day of the convention, over a thousand users reported a grinder outage in the Milwaukee area on the website downdetector. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote on the final day of the RNC that reports of the Grinder app crashing increased by more than 90% in the past 48 hours across the country. The Down Detector heat map showed grinder outages in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, as well as a hotspot of outages in Milwaukee near the end of the convention, indicating users were experiencing issues with the app, possibly due to an increase in activity. And you will hear more about that activity after this ad break. This episode of It Could Happen Here is brought to you in part by the Challengers soundtrack remix by Boys Noise, which I was listening to as I wrote most this episode while on the plane back to Atlanta. This episode is also brought to you by these products and services.

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[C]

We once again return to the Grind. We gotta keep on grinding. We're almost done but we gotta grind a little more Just one more grind, bro. I swear I'm not addicted Just one more grind, bro Just one more grind during the influx of reports about the Grindr app breaking during the rnc, a post from the Twitter account for the halfway post went extremely viral, bolstering claims of a massive increase in activity. Quote Breaking an executive of the gay dating app Grindr says the Republican National Convention is, quote basically Grindr's super bowl, unquote. This quote from a Grindr executive went super viral, prompting discussions all over the Internet about five different articles and even disgraced former New York Congressman George Santos commented on the phenomenon. Content warning Gay Republican so Grindr executives are calling the RNC convention the Grindr Super Bowl. Folks, look, I'm openly gay. No qualms about it. Proud conservative Republican. I met my husband on Grindr and we've been together for six years, going on seven, married for almost three. Let me tell you something. Just come out the closet, boys. Come on. It's fun. You can be gay and conservative, but look, Grindr's already outing you anyway based on the hits. And guess who's in town? It's all you conservatives. Bye now. I certainly did observe a lot of blank or anonymous profiles, at least more than I'm used to. I also received messages containing variations of hey sexy from at least five accounts that have since been deactivated. And this does line up with a report from a Milwaukee area Grindr user who spoke with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel saying that he noticed a major bump in anonymous users. Quote, on any given day you'll go on there and see a headless torso or a blank profile, said the source, who did not want to be named. The Grindr user said, on a normal day you'll encounter maybe 10 users with no public profile. But Thursday, when he checked the app, he said he stopped counting at 50 blank profile photos. Now we don't have any official data yet on Grindr usage near the 2024 RNC. Only the down detector reports, which are user submitted. But we do at least have data from the last In Person convention in Cleveland, Ohio all the way back in 2016. A Vice article by Candace Bryan spoke with sources from Grindr and wrote that quote, grindr usage near the Quicken Loans arena showed a 66% increase during the RNC. Other active destinations including Times Square, Capitol Hill, Disneyland, south beach and Trump Tower showed no comparable increase in active users. Unquote. Many of the local twinks and trans folks certainly were concerned about possible RNC freaks hiding on the app. People would often first ask me if I was a Republican or why I was in town before trying to hit on me. One such twink told me I would be surprised if you were a delegate or something, but I had to check. As the week progressed, more locals told me that they had found a handful of out and proud patriots online, but really not many. In fact, multiple Milwaukee locals I chatted with on Grindr did claim to notice an uptick in users, but mostly recognizable local users who were online for the same reason I was to see if there was an influx of closeted Republicans, someone told me. For the record, it's like three times busier here than normal. Everyone is out to see what the Republicans are up to, and the chasers have come out of the woodwork. Far from being the app's super bowl, according to Vice, the 2016 RNC's 66% bump in activity is less than one half of the increase in Grindr activity that was seen at the Last In Person dnc, an event which was also a whole day shorter. I'll read from Vice. However, from Sunday to Monday, the week of the Democratic National Convention, there was an even higher 148% increase in activity around the Wells Fargo arena in Philadelphia, unquote. It's also worth noting that of that 66% increase in activity around the 2016 RNC, only about 40% of those users were visiting Cleveland. Most were locals. Meanwhile, 60% of Grindr users active near the DNC in Philadelphia were visiting the city. Oh, and that quote from a Grindr executive calling the RNC Grindr's super bowl as well as George Santos other claim about Grindr purposely outing gay conservatives. Both of those claims originate from Twitter satire accounts.

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Is totally made up. Pure fiction. It's fiction. It's fiction. We made it up. We made this one up. It's a made up tale. It's a total fabrication. It never happened.

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It's an urban legend that never happened. So no, the RNC is not Grindr's Super Bowl. I got messages from over 150 different people. Over 90% of the messages I received and profiles visible online even while inside the Pfizer forum, were from locals completely unaffiliated with the rnc. And any boost in activity that can be attributed to people visiting for the RNC is a minuscule drop in the bucket compared to the proverbial orgy festival of out of town gay Democrats who travel to the DNC and like. If you think about this logically, this shouldn't at all be surprising. The Republican Party has spent the past two years screaming about how all drag queens are child groomers. And though this was the first year the GOP has removed opposition to gay marriage from their party platform, they have massively increased their opposition to and attacks against trans people. And really any display of visible queerness. Like, come on, this is the Republican Party. There's this kind of fucked up cultural conception that homophobic politicians must be so because they are secretly gay. And while there is the occasional like Lindsey Graham or repressed homosexual preacher, this is not the norm. And all Republicans, being secretly gay is not the driving force of legislative homophobia. It is an ideological drive largely in furtherance of hegemonic Christian nationalism. And now for people like Elon Musk and more young Republicans, a fascistic notion of reproductive futurism built on fears that young people, white people, aren't having enough white babies, which they partially attribute to society becoming more accepting of gay and trans people, resulting in people having less reproductive or heterosexual sex. Never mind the fact that queer and trans people oftentimes can and do have children, which still doesn't seem to please these conservatives as it doesn't align with their traditionalist view of the family unit. So no, Grindr wasn't flooded with closeted Republicans, because there simply isn't that many closeted Republicans that are going to be attending the rnc. And while there may not be as many Republicans as I thought there might be, I do believe that I have the bump in activity, albeit a smaller bump than rumored. Basically figured out based on my anecdotal experience and the reports of a handful of local Grindr users and journalists I talked with who were online during the 2024 RNC. And considering the 2016 Grindr data, I can report that merely a small minority of activity was due to ordinary RNC attendees. The majority of activity was from locals who either regularly used Grindr or were specifically curious about who might be online during the rnc. I observed two more groups that would contribute to any noticeable increase in activity. Not everyone who attends the RNC are guests or delegates. A lot of people work at the convention center or work tech, and a sizable chunk of people are like myself, researchers, pollsters or journalists who attend conventions like this for work. And lastly, the final group that fills out the bump in Grinder activity, one that I for some reason didn't really expect to see upon arrival, but in retrospect makes total sense, are cops. So many cops. There was so many cops online at the rnc. Just like delegates or reporters, they are coming into town from all around the country. There was cops or state troopers from Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, California, Indiana and many more states as well as U.S. capitol Police, Secret Service, TSA, DHS and FBI. They were all in town as a part of the security detail. A few of the guys that messaged me I can absolutely confirm are 100% police or some kind of military police. A 33 year old cop or military guy looking for sexy bottoms with the tags jock, military, discreet and weightlifting as well as many pictures of him in the gym. Said in his bio that he was really into slim, skinny, toned and muscular people. He messaged me saying hey. Now I got a lot of hey's in my inbox which is not unusual for Grindr. You will probably mostly get hey as a message as well as just you know, a picture of someone's penis. But between a penis and hey, those are probably the two most received messages you will get on Grindr. There was another guy with a username DL Military who said in his bio he was working security for the week and that Grindr messages had completely broke for him and to instead message him on Snapchat. The DL in DL Military stands for down low. It's a tag that only the worst people on Grindr will use, mainly like self hating gay men who are closeted and it's down low because they don't want to be like publicly seen being gay. Just absolutely the worst we do not fuck with DL, both literally and figuratively. There were a bunch of other non locals who I would describe as cop types. I can't 100% say for sure that they are cops, but they have like the look, you know, like the look, the cop look. I don't know. They could also be like a bodyguard or working private security. But one of these cop looking guys messaged me asking if I was a trans guy, which I always love to see. It means I'm doing gender very well. And a few other cop types sent relatively boring messages. So yeah, a lot of cops, which is not completely surprising considering the fact that basically half the cops in the country were at the Republican National Convention in some form or another. A few final notes. Now this didn't really make up a sizable chunk of the Grindr population, but after saying I was just covering the rnc, a couple people on Grindr just completely unprompted, told me that they were attending the protests against the rnc. Please do not do this. That's a horrible idea for multiple reasons. You got to stop talking about your political activities on dating apps, especially Grindr. Especially at the rnc. Horrible idea. Do. Do not do this. And despite my lazy attempt at a Young Republican disguised online profile, a few too many people did recognize me from Twitter or the pod. But they were very nice. They gave me some recommendations for what gay bars to check out after convention hours. And one person told me this interesting anecdote that I'd like to share. Quote, I don't think Trump is going to win. I canvassed for Hillary in 2016 and at least here it doesn't feel the same. I thought that was a little interesting tidbit that I received at probably around 3am on Grindr. So there you go. Anyway, that was my RNC Grindr experience. I'm sorry to report it is not the hotbed of closeted Republicans that we meme it to be. It's mostly local gays, a few reporters and a few more cops. I. I do not think I'll be reporting on the DNC Grinder, but I am curious to see if there is a sizable increase in activity as compared to the RNC Grinder. So I guess I will maybe post about that on Twitter ungrybowtie if you want updates on that. Anyway, stay safe out there. Be careful if you're ever on Grindr, please. Especially don't tell someone covering the RNC that you're attending any protests. But in general, be careful on these types of dating apps. And I will see you on the other side. Message from Quickie Grindr said you were super close yesterday. Wasn't stalking I promise. Message from Birthday present Emoji I almost thought you were Josh Thomas. Message from Anonymous Wait, are you pro or anti Republican? I'm not gonna lie, I mainly asked your politics cause I thought you were cute but I didn't want to hit on a Trumper. Message from Older for young Aren't all the delegates propositioning you? You're cute. Message from Anonymous why establish a totalitarian state if I can't breed its dictator? Message from Suck me off. I'm down for anything. Lol. Are you supporting Trump? Haha. It Could Happen here as a production of coolzone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.

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Or wherever you listen to podcasts you.

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Can find sources for It Could Happen here updated [e-mail] sources thanks for listening.

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