The Grindr generation

After fighting a bad depression for a week I suddenly see a ray of light on my face, and I fight out of it with a new essay, which I have decided to name the Grindr generation. For the grammar Nazis, though am completely aware of my lack of sense of spelling (a friend of mine recently told me I have queer spelling, blessed be that person), this time I am sure I am using the right one. As I am not talking about the grinder that we use in the kitchen, but the smart phone application for gay, bi and questioning men for finding friends and hook ups. There are couple more like Scruff, Tinder and OkCupid that I have used and still use. To make it clear, I was not born or even raised in this mobile app generation, to be honest I was born before the internet came, but as we all as evolving creatures, I have learned to use these and be patient with these. Since the computer came, the face of socializing has changed completely. Especially the cruising has become a completely different story, I personally feel it has become a little bit safer as we do not need to go out in public and get arrested or harassed. But then the society has also changed or so would I like to think. I remember when I was in my early 20s I would log in to Yahoo Messenger and go to a room and will type m4m, which stands for man for men, rather than going to a shady park which people from my previous generations did.

And then with smart phones came the apps, I do not know how pro-equality the CEOs of these app companies are, but this is one more example of need based capitalism, where the sexual and social needs of a group of people are exploited by a corporation who has no empathy towards the users. If this has started to read like a tutorial for using these apps, am sorry not my aim. I just want to talk about how this has changed our way of interaction. So what happens in these apps that you upload a picture of yourself, mostly selfies and if I am talking about gay-apps, mostly of your ripped shirtless torso, and then you “describe” the totality of you in couple of words. I will be very honest, most of these pictures are very attractive to look at and help me in my “extracurricular activities” (wink, wink) but when I get in touch with my activist-feminist self I frustrate myself knowing I still use these. However am not going to make it a self-blaming self-pity essay now, as I have learned to accept myself as I am. So what most of us do in these apps, we scroll through the pictures, read those five word “bios” and try to decide who is my “type”. I will not even go in length about some of the bios which says am looking for a date but no Asians please, and how they insist that that is their “preference” and not racism (certainly not, they never said kill all the Asians, which would be the only way you can be racist), or the ones which would say am not looking for a hookup but then will have a highly sexualized self-photograph! My not so young brain sometimes gets a little skeptical about these. But the most interesting thing about these apps is the “blocking” game that happens there. So what happens is you look at a picture and you do not like it, or you get a message from someone who is not appealing to you, easy just block him and he will never show up in your list. I wish the world in real was like that, we could just eliminate the faces that we do not find attractive (who wants to take time to know if there is an incredible mind behind that “ugly” face). I just wonder if this “blocking” in virtual world is starting to affect our brains in reality. Then as the app has to make money out of our sexuality, what they do is, to see guys beyond a specific distance, either you have to pay them or keep blocking people that you do not like who are close to you as that opens up few spots on your page to see new faces. I have spent hours and days on these apps, hoping I will have a good conversation that will lead to a real meeting. Often I have hooked up with people from here, but the overall mood is no one takes chatting here seriously! So what happens, especially in a place like Calgary, where there are not enough gay spaces, you and all others are always on Grindr (am using this app as an example, no hard feelings and no pun intended), checking each other out with utter judgment towards each other and completely not talking! And from time to time you block people you do not like. The funny thing is if you are a free member, you have a limit to how many guys you can block in one day, but as you start paying the blocking gets unlimited. Yay! Long live capitalism! So what I am complaining about is more the attitude than the app. We can use the same technology for good or evil depending on our intentions. Instead of realizing how lucky we are to have internet and apps to get to know people, we just do not take it seriously or take it for granted and decide to live in isolation rather than talk to people. There is a perplexing reality of human mind, scarcity entices our mind and we find the scars the most desirable, the moment things get a little easier we just get bored of the situation. Now before you give me a look of judgment, I must clarify, I myself decide who I want to talk and who I do not want to be friends with all the time. But more than often it is based on my series of conversations with them not just by looking at a photo-shopped picture that you took when you were in your best “shape”! (I in fact saw once on Gridr someone offering to take “attractive” pictures for other people for becoming more popular on these apps).

Now as I try to wrap up my essay here, for me whenever I think about meeting new people with the hope of making new friends or new romantic pursuits, I remember two scenes from two movies that I watched as a kid, Gone with the wind and Pride and prejudice. I feel ahh! Those were the days when people used to talk and meet and interact before they decided who they found attractive, as attractiveness is so much more complex than a ripped torso. I completely realize though that there were lots of gender role impositions, sexism, classism and everything that we as activists want to tear apart in those interactions. But I still find it more appealing than the way Grindr is. So people, as much as you enjoy nice bodies, please appreciate the privileges that we have right now in meeting people, and may be when you get a “hello” from a new person next time, take a chance and strike a conversation.