Hook-up Apps Are Destroying Gay Youth Culture

A transgender woman and social media influencer told her followers to download gay dating apps to see which men in their communities are gay. Naoufal Moussa, also known as Sofia Talouni, is a Turkey-based beauty influencer whose nightly Instagram Live series was watched by more than , people. Moussa made the suggestion during a broadcast last week. Speaking in Moroccan Arabic in the video, she suggested that her followers download gay dating apps like Grindr, PlanetRomeo, and Hornet and create fake profiles pretending to be bottoms so they could see which people near them identify as gay.

Grindr is not the only LGBT dating app to allow filtering by race. The spotlight will now move to others that have yet to take a similar stance.

By Sara Lighthall. Rebecca is your typical tech-savvy twentysomething. The app operates by giving users a stack of pictures to sift through; if one likes what they see, they swipe right over the image, if they do not, they swipe left and move on. While Tinder and other dating apps like Bumble , Hinge , and OkCupid pride themselves on making meaningful couplings, many young users reject the serious nature of the products and repurpose them as merely carefree entertainment.

As a long-term user, she claims that she has always used the app casually, never thinking that her soulmate could possibly be among those she matches with. Perched on her bed in her cozy light blue room in Santa Barbara, Emily makes a quick back and forth motion with her thumb, showing me how rapidly she flicks through profiles on the Tinder app, giving each user a two-second evaluation at most.

Emily is not in the minority.