
Grindr has crashed in Milwaukee due to unprecedented traffic. The Republican National Convention is currently happening there.
Dating app Grindr crashes, anonymous profiles spike during RNC in Milwaukee
Are hookups on the rise during the Republican National Convention this week?
According to Google search trends, that has been one of the hot topics on peopleâs minds in Milwaukee, particularly regarding gay dating app Grindr, which has seen a flood of unconfirmed reports that itâs continually crashing during the convention.
But whatâs really happening on Grindr this week?
One user in Milwaukee said there has been a significant bump in the number of anonymous users.
âOn any given day, youâll go on there and see a headless torso or blank profile,â said the source, who did not want to be named. He explained that a profile typically means a user is looking for a fling, not a relationship.

The Grindr user said he saw a big increase in the amount of blank profiles this week.
If thatâs the case, it aligns with Grindrâs activity during previous national conventions.
Rocky, who declined to provide his last name because he works downtown, was calling out to delegates and others leaving the RNC on Wednesday night, asking them about their views on LGBT issues. “You crashed our website!” he said, referring to news that Grindr was experiencing outages in Milwaukee during the RNC due to high traffic.
After the 2016 RNC in Cleveland, a Vice article that cited sources from Grindr said user traffic increased by 66% around the conventionâs main hub. Other Grindr hotspots, like Times Square, Capitol Hill, Disneyland, and South Beach, Florida, saw no comparable increase in user traffic at the time.
Democrats flock to the app during their convention, too. The same article said Grindr reported a 148% increase in activity around Philadelphiaâs Wells Fargo Arena during the week of the 2016 DNC.
Grindr did not immediately respond to a request for comment about an increase in usage or reported outages during the 2024 RNC, and according to status.grindr.com, no operational incidents have been recorded by Grindr since May, when partial outages for the grid, chat and albums features were noted. In June and July, all Grindr features were 100% operational according to the appâs official status tracker.
But thatâs not stopping users from taking the matter into their own hands.
Reports of the Grindr app crashing increased by more than 90% in the past 48 hours across the country, according to Downdetector, a digital platform that tracks service issues among apps. Downdetectorâs heat map shows where the Grindr outages are taking place. Milwaukee is one of the few hotspots for outages, according to the website.
Those reports may have spawned from a recent post from @TheHalfwayPost, a political satire account, on X, formerly known as Twitter.
BREAKING: An executive of the gay dating app Grindr says the Republican National Convention is âbasically Grindrâs Super Bowl.â
â The Halfway Post (@HalfwayPost) July 16, 2024
The post claimed to quote a Grindr executive who allegedly said that the Republican National Convention is âbasically Grindrâs Super Bowl.â
As of Thursday morning, the post has nearly 50 million views.
Former Republican New York Congressman George Santos was one of them. Santos, who was expelled from Congress earlier this year for misuse of campaign funds and committing federal crimes, responded to the satirical tweet with a sincere message to any potentially closeted gay conservatives.
đđŒComeđđŒoutđđŒtheđđŒclosestđđŒboysđđŒ! pic.twitter.com/3peFp8KOHh
â George Santos (@MrSantosNY) July 17, 2024
âLet me tell you something,â the openly gay former Congressman continued. âJust come out of the closet, boys. Come on, itâs fun! You can be gay and conservative. But, look, Grindrâs already outing you anyway based on the hits, and guess whoâs in town? Itâs all you conservatives. Bye!â
In the video, Santos said he met his husband, Matheus âMattâ Gerard, on Grindr. The two have been together for six years and married for three.
That timeline means the couple couldnât have linked up during the 2016 RNC, but with one more night of the 2024 convention to go, thereâs plenty of time for last-minute matches to be made in Milwaukee, no matter the dating app.




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