(To Profit): Homoconnectivity on Grindr

Home , Grindr, Rainbow capitalism, Technoliberalism

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Discrete and looking (to profit): homoconnectivity on Grindr

Chase Aunspach

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Discrete and looking (to profit): Homoconnectivity on Grindr*

Chase Aunspach

Department of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

Corresponding author — Chase Aunspach, [email protected] ; Department of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, 356 Louise Pound Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0329, USA

ORCID — Chase Aunspach http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9555-7861

Abstract The queer dating and hookup app Grindr evidences a technological and economic in- longer consumerist norms but the collection and analysis of data. Grindr’s participa- tensification in queer spaces online. The dominant modality of capitalist power is no tion in datafication distributes increased risks upon its queer users and necessitates a- renewed politics of queer privacy beyond homonormativity. I name this arrangement of power homoconnectivity and detail four techniques that capitalism deploys to cap ture and monetize queer social production. Ultimately, this article unpacks how Grindr deployingdesigns experiences annoying thatconstraints, move users platforms to log into like theGrindr app privatizewhile hiding and its monetize engagement user spaces,with multi-sided communities, markets. social Oscillating production, between and lives producing under the continuous guise of increased experiences connec and- - - tivity. With the goal of building more just queer worlds, homoconnectivity makes leg ible new pressure points to push back against the growing ubiquity of capitalist data ficationKeywords: and queer world-taking. Datafication, digital rhetoric, homonormativity, interface, platforms, privacy Published in Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) doi 10.1080/15295036.2019.1690157 Copyright © 2019 National Communication Association. Published by Taylor & Francis. Used by permission Submitted 15 April 2019; accepted 31 October 2019; published 22 November 2019.

*This is not a homophonic flub. On the one hand, the article to come traces how Grindr cracks thequeer phrases intimacies “discreet” into “discrete”and “looking” parts are through common datafication, refrains on and Grindr. on the other, Grindr places risk upon queer lives and necessitates a new orientation to “discretion,” to privacy. Oh! and

1 Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 2

Aunspach in Love, Simon evidence that there is more to queer media politics than representa- ’s (2018) sugary-sweet, queer coming-of-age narrative can hugtion. and Take apology the following for his exchangecasual homophobia, between Simon Simon’s and dad his offers,father, “Hey. Nick (Godfrey, Bowen, Shahbazian, Klausner, & Berlanti, 2018). After a quick

I thought maybe we could sign up for Grindr together.” Simon puts his- hands in his pockets, digging for the right thing to say: “You don’t know what Grindr is, do you?” “It’s Facebook for gay people!” flexes Nick, step ping inside their house and into his newfound allyship. Looking down, SimonObviously, says plainly,“ Simon’s … dad not could what have it is,” used before more following background his dad information through aboutthe doorway. Grindr. Released in 2009, Grindr is a geolocative mobile application with over 3.8 million daily active users who are primarily men-who- peoplehave-sex-with-men, log into Grindr as (Licoppe, well as transwomen Rivière, & Morel, and non-binary 2016), and individuals other uses (Bucksense & Grindr, 2018). Arranging hookups is predominately why queer friends, organizing intimate and sometimes non-sexual chem- include simply passing the time, coordinating sex work, chatting with- munity, and consensually exchanging self-pornography (Ahlm, 2017; Brennan,sex sessions, 2017; generally Cassidy, 2018;locating Hakim, oneself 2019; within Miles, a 2017;broader Tziallas, queer 2015). com and the relative discreetness of cell phones, can challenge the heteronor- Researchers have argued Grindr, due the app’s networked immediacy- mativity of otherwise contextually “straight” spaces (Batiste, 2013). Af fordances like this can make Grindr feel like a hard break with previous queer spaces. However, Mowlabocus (2010) pointed out that Grindr is- one technology in a long history that demonstrates how the seemingly queerfirm lines subcultures’ between terrains the public–private, (p. 15). These online–offline similarities do “are not at stop best, at difthe ficult to maintain, and at worse, fabrications that conceal the truth of”- - public–private, online–offline divide; Grindr and its users’ communica tion often reaffirm the long history of inequalities sustained in other wiseIn “inclusive”this article, queer I argue spaces that Simon—notalong power hislines dad—is like citizen mistaken. status, Grindr class, and whitenessFacebook (Shield,are more 2019). similar than different. They are platforms that bring together users, corporate partners, and even governments who have a vested interest in “the systematic collection, algorithmic Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 3

Aunspach in processing, circulation, and monetization of user data” (van Dijck,

- Poell, & de Waal, 2018, p. 4). Thinking with Grindr and similar apps 2018),extends and previous platform work studies about (van queer Dijck, commercialization 2013) to better online enunciate (Camp the materialbell, 2005), and privacy political (Fuchs, stakes 2012),for queer technoliberalism people in this current (Pfister mutation & Yang, of capitalism. I offer the concept of homoconnectivity1 to illuminate the risks LGBTQ people as a group face online—not just because Grindr en- courages stranger sociability (Albury & Byron, 2016) but due to data-

I am not alone in this concern. In March 2019, Reuters reported thatfication the (Crain,Federal 2018; Committee Mai, 2016). on Foreign Investment in the United States considering its plan for an initial public offering, the organization (CFIUS) notified Grindr’s parent company Beijing Kunlun Tech, after needed to sell the app outright since its Chinese ownership posed a U.S. mightnational be securitypressured risk by (O’Donnell, the Chinese Baker, government & Wang, to 2019). give up This user follows data. In a theU.S. casegovernment of Grindr, trend its collection of questioning of users’ how sex companies practices, located locations, in China and serostatuses could make rich fodder for Chinese agents to coerce peo- - porate espionage (Finley, 2019). Despite the fact the CFIUS rescinded itsple objections who might in not July be 2019openly (Yang, queer 2019), into carrying this anxiety out military over queer and datacor is not just some Cold War hangover. Grindr’s (2018) Terms of Service boldly declare that by logging into the app “you consent to the trans- fer and processing of [y]our data in the United States of America and

- mentsany other and jurisdiction corporations throughout unaccountable the world” for their (“Use privacy Outside practices, the United the distributionStates,” para. of 1). risk In placeda heteronormative on queer people world online with calls surveilling for further govern the- orizing and political action.

In what follows, I establish the concept of homoconnectivity to then 2015;zoom into Yeo Grindr& Fung, as 2018) a specific taking instantiation Grindr itself of its as data a text extraction. to counteract I join a generalgrowing trend group in of queer scholars media (Faris, research 2018; thatRace, “treats 2015; theShield, medium 2018; of Woo, de- - remainderlivery—television, of this article radio, unfoldsfilm, the in internet, three main and moves.so on—as First, neutral, I animate uni versal, or presumptively masculine” (Shaw & Sender, 2016, p. 1). The Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 4

Aunspach in - tion affect queer users in queer-for-queer online spaces. This sets the homoconnectivity to illuminate how platform capitalism and datafica tostage smooth to, second, over the analyze app’s Grindr’s multiple design, market following pressures how to renderthe app and creates col- lectuser user experiences data, advertise, that teeter–totter and obtain between purchases continuity of its subscription and constraint ser- homoconnectivity. vice. I end with a brief meditation on the media struggles and futures of

Reading (for capitalism) is fundamental: from homonormativity to homoconnectivity

Grindr functions as more than a means to locate queer individuals in real - physicaltime. The environments, people who access other Grindr users, andare alwaysthe app navigating itself. I phase the interdethrough thesependence dynamic between relationships—my their social locations experience and histories, as a Grindr capitalism, user, the offline rhetorical nudges of Grindr’s design, and the logics of capitalism— with a- figure/ground orientation that looks at, through, and around the app. In- other words, I see my task moving forward as twofold: to establish ho asmoconnectivity a localized space as a participatingterm to sensitize in homoconnectivity, scholars to a contemporary deploys the figu de- signration logics of capitalism of continuity affecting and queer constraint people to and direct to illuminate user experiences. how Grindr, To of homoconnectivity in this section and link it to extractive capitalism, build a scaffolding for my analysis, I introduce a more supple definition privacy, and platform-driven datafication. I define homoconnectivity as an arrangement of power that extracts (2013)profits andinsight potentiality that connectivity from queer is a communities rhetoric, goal, through opportunity, online and spaces, trap promotedsocial media, by online technologies, companies and/or to attract software. users I(pp. draw 12–13, upon 16). van Because Dijck’s this connectivity shapes and limits human sociality (van Dijck, 2013, - p. 4), I focus on homoconnectivity to makeThe Twilight legible how of Equality capitalism argued spe cifically impacts queer people through queer-for-queer online spaces. capitalismDuggan’s (2003) morphed foundational into a formation work she named “homonormativity.”2 that at the turn of the twenty-first century queer people, politics, and Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 5

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cooptingHomonormativity the language marks of a queer double-move public politics where dominantlike equality, social freedom, norms andattempt privacy to relegate to secure all the aspects positions of queer of bigotry life to and the corporate private sphere culture while (pp. 65–66). Although social norms peddle heteronormative ideals, consumerism, and labor relations that constantly encroach on the distinctions - between work and life, I argue homoconnectivity, not homonormativity, is the dominant figuration of capitalism’s force in queer lives online. Homoconnectivity plays with the elasticity of Duggan’s homonormativ inity contemporary, in two ways: twisting class-based her focus arguments on social about norms privacy to better and accountuser data. for I discussqueer life each online; of these and moves tugging in on turn. the queer threads otherwise missing Pickled by Italian autonomist Marxisms (Hardt & Negri, 2017; Sr- - line spaces are key sites that mark a turn in capitalism’s techniques of nicek, 2016; Terranova, 2000), homoconnectivity highlights how on online users’ interactions function, if at all, in broader systems of com- power and locations of queer resistance. Scholars have debated how- modification and exploitation (Andrejevic, 2013; Barbrook, 1998; Hes Negri’smondhalgh, (2017) 2010; understanding Terranova, 2000). of capitalism When considering as extraction. for-profit As opposed online tospaces treating like people Grindr, as I ambamboozled drawn to dupes the explanatory tricked into power exploitation, of Hardt Hardt and

- and Negri highlighted how capitalism constantly reinvents itself to more- efficiently privatize and control living labor, humankind’s collective gen surpluserativity. value Capitalism in regimented evolves laborto more time, efficiently and privatizing clutch onto common the slipperi cultural productionness of living (Hardt labor & with Negri, tactics 2017, like p. colonial193). conquest, the gathering of

- sitatingIncreases a conceptual in computational innovation power from have normativity rapidly improved to connectivity. companies’ Ho- means of capture and their ubiquity (Pfister & Yang, 2018, p. 36), neces- italism’s reach and ability to leech queer online social production—our moconnectivity centers how technological developments intensify cap- knowledges, relationships, cultures, spaces, potentialities, and, most im- portantly, data. This shift in attention becomes clearer when comparing goodprevious gay researchbodies as on sporty Grindr and with muscular this article’s (Enguix analysis. & Gómez- If I were Narváez, to un pack Grindr’s homonormativity, I might note how users’ profiles frame Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 6

Aunspach in 2018; Miller, 2018) and produce racist, hegemonically masculine af-

- fects (Jaspal, 2017; Penney, 2014). In contrast, I am concerned with how- Grindr enacts power not through messages about queerness but by con- cialstituting production a complex, is cultivated, extractive collected,queer space and in transformed:the first place. shaping I provision the ally identify four such homoconnective techniques by which queer so- gies; externalizing sites, performances, and communication of queer de- affective and attentional economies of users towards for-profit technolo- ing back to users the experience of immediacy, intimacy, and (stranger) sociabilitysires; quantifying, often constitutive financializing, of queerness and sharing and users’ queer activities; spaces. Mappingand sell questioned the effects of (online) consumerism on queer communities these tactics extends the fruitful work of previous scholars who have

(Campbell, 2005; Cassidy, 2018; Duggan, 2003; Mowlabocus, 2010). By byequipping a mutation queer from communities consumerism with to an extractivism, orientation toprivatize homoconnectivity, and mone- tizewe can aspects better of accountqueer lives. for and disrupt the ways technologies, boosted As opposed to class-based critiques of the asymmetry in online privacy (Fuchs, 2012), homoconnectivity marks the risks placed on queer end-users as a class-upon-themselves. As Duggan (2003) pointed out, privacy has been a keystone value in queer organizing in the United States, dating back to the homophile movement in the 1950s (p. 52). Ho- off-limits:moconnectivity “Demographic, renews a politics economic, of privacy behavioral, that accounts health, religion, for the specificsexual- ity,effects and dataficationlife event-based can information have on queer are people.all routinely Little aggregated” about our lives(Crain, is 2018, p. 90) online. Geolocative apps like Grindr afford increased mo- and multinational corporations to surveil, harm, and entrap queer peo- bility while leaving these crumbs of valuable data, allowing state actors - liedple financially on Grindr toand identify legally. and For jail example, queer individuals.South Korea (Hancocks & Suk, 2017)My concernand Egypt does (Raghavan, not stop 2017) at data are gathering, just two though.countries Normative that have apre- proaches to data frame information as a person’s property improperly - sify and sort people based on the available data—and thereby to create handled by a company, but datafication also entails “the ability to clas- ests” (Mai, 2016, p. 198). This produces an afterlife to data that requires new insights and correlations between people, their activities, and inter Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 7

Aunspach in a reframing of privacy as a collective political problem since analysis and

- knowledge-production occur at the population, not the personal, level. Homoconnectivity flags the need for new ways to enact care and imag likeine queer Grindr. spaces, politics, and privacy split from the profiting practices of data brokering and the weaponization of predictive analysis by apps- form is “a programable digital architecture designed to organize inter- Datafication is rarely, if at all, possible without platforms. A plat - rithmicactions processing,between users—not circulation, just and end monetization users but also of usercorporate data” (vanentities Di- jckand et public al., 2018, bodies. p. 4). It Platformsis geared towardmust negotiate the systematic the production collection, and algo ful- distantfillment desires of multiple (van wants Dijck, and 2013, needs p. 12). for Highesttheir various among users, these leveraging cravings isthe connectivity. vast amount In of exchange intimate foruser their data time, they attention, collect to andtap intosocial otherwise production, users taste moments of sociality that hide the underbelly “fueled by data, automated and organized through algorithms and interfaces, formalized through ownership relations driven by business models, and governed through user agreements” (van Dijck et al., 2018, p. 9, empha- sis in the original). In pursuit of data, companies often attempt to “box

- cialin” users life (van and Dijck, nudge 2013, them p.toward 9). platform chains of vertical integration, driftingGrindr from is no their exception. original servicesIn 2016, toward the Chinese other domainsmobile gaming of online com so-

- pany Beijing Kunlun Tech purchased a 62% share in Grindr as part of its- broader diversification strategy to cultivate products and services in mar- bilekets gamesoutside Angry China Birds, (Ge, 2017). Clash ofGrindr Clans, is andone Needplatform for Speed,in a suite the of Opera Kun lun Tech’s holdings, which include Chinese distribution rights to the mo- lion monthly users (Wang, 2016). After completely purchasing the com- browser, numerous financial service firms, and two app stores with 20 mil-

Unitedpany in States 2017, (Wang Kunlun & Tech O’Donnell, granted 2019). access There to Grindr is no evidence users’ data to dateto engi the neers in Beijing while migrating the app’s management away from the

Chinese government has misused the information, but this episode with Kunlun Tech affirms why we must pay attention to homoconnectivity and how queer data can be wielded by multinational corporations and state actors whose motivations might overlap by chance, choice, and force. Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 8

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NieborgAs I turn and toward Helmond analyzing (2019) Grindrargued itself, that a I consumer–producerwant to push against oriena ten- dency to view the relationship between platforms andmultisided users as markets dyadic. - tation to platforms misses their engagements with “ developers),where platforms advertisers, facilitate and interactions others” (p. between 201). Platforms distinct ‘sides’and the or rela ‘users’, which include end-users (i.e. consumers), businesses (e.g. content complex descriptions beyond extractor and host. Grindr provides us- tionships that structure their growth are complex and deserve equally people to spend as much time as possible on the app, increasing data ers access to the intimacies of queer sociality while convincing queer troves of user information, Grindr also sells advertising opportunities collection. Blending their new partner platform Directopub with its postal codes and even certain lat[itude]-lon[gitude] radi[i]” (Directo- to companies with a precision that can “target specific regions, cities, andpub, punctuate 2018, p. 5). users’ This experiencessets the stage at to the break nexus down of homoconnectivity how Grindr uses andwhat the I label app’s techniques multisided of market. continuity and constraints to both smooth

Power play: caught between Grindr’s continuity and constraint

Grindr exerts effort like many “interface designs [to] encourage us to see - individuals’forgetfully” (Wysockiability to &locate Jasken, and 2004, lust afterp. 30). each Although other, networkedtheir opacity dat is ing apps like Grindr, Scruff, and Growlr have certainly increased queer- sibilities it both affords and restricts, the remainder of this article prob- lematizesconcerning. Grindr’s Oscillating interface, between messaging Grindr’s builtsystem, experiences advertising, and and the subpos-

&scription Grindr, model2018), tothe bring sheer forward number its of homoconnectivity queer individuals’ (Figure perceptions 1, Grindr, be- ingn.d.). shaped With anby estimatedGrindr and 3.8 the million unaccounted-for daily users vulnerabilities worldwide (Bucksense that come - withGrindr data extractioncontours andmake nibbles this analysis on its anusers’ important social productivity,entry point to yetchal it lenge the appification of queer lives. must construct users’ experiences in a way that does not completely tip- off that they are a resource within the app’s multisided market. Taking Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 9

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Figure 1.

A mock-up of Grindr’s interface on iPhone from Grindr’s website.

- inghomoconnectivity from queer social as production a backdrop, and I organize potentialities: my criticism continuity around and contwo- complementary techniques Grindr deploys to satisfy users while profit- straint. Continuity and constraint work together through interfaces, pull ing users into an app where data is captured and pushing them toward Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 10

Aunspach in buying its paid version. Although these processes act in tandem on the continuity and then constraint. app, I separate their movement for heuristic clarity—first dwelling on

Continuity

- - Grindr participates in what Pfister and Yang (2018) call technoliberal theseism, an systems intensification intervene in is capitalism by creating where user appsexperiences “work to so build seamless new thatsys peopletems that incorporate can replace digital existing products ways into of doing their things”daily performativities. (p. 254). A key Datway- ing apps like Grindr privatize common spaces of queer stranger sociability like bars and coffee shops through their geolocative affordances. accessCollapsing to queer the physical spaces thatproximity are increasingly between users, personalized Grindr overcomes and brimming this limitation of previous queer spaces. This intensifies subscribers’ ease of of homoconnectivity, Grindr provides the space and the means for users with more chances to meet others. Reveling in the productive both-and each other, only to then suck participants’ data and the (sexual) products ofto communicativelytheir communication. erect The horniness, resulting excitement, data are then and attentionmassaged between by pro- advertisements to individual users, and coax people into continuing and evengrammers increasing to change their future attentional iterations investments of the app, in composeGrindr. more specific Grindr relies on three contemporaneous moves to create a sense of - trusive reach of the app, giving it omnipresence. Grindr then funnels us- erscontinuity into a self-centered for its users. orientationFirst, Grindr’s to queerinterface space, quiets encouraging the otherwise them in to agency. From this position, Grindr becomes a substitute for the bodies andfill in potentialities the perceptual of blanksother people of its subtle in its queerdesigns dating with space,their own nudging sense us of- discuss these overlapping communicative tactics in turn. ers to touch their phones with the same flirtation as a potential mate. I Rhetorical quieting

Grindr paradoxically makes itself loud and quieted, present and invis- ible to users who enter the platform. Although people download the Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 11

Aunspach in every use, Grindr’s presence is strategically unintrusive to avoid being application onto their devices, create profiles, log in, and open it with-

2019);annoying Grindr or clunky. itself possesses It is not just designed Grindr decrescendos users who calibrate to not interrupt the vol ume of their profiles and identities via rhetorical quieting (Smilges, - the work—the valuable social production —of individuals. By getting meansout of subscribers’ for people to way, act Grindrupon their ushers desires. people Visually, through Grindr its interface, quiets itself con tojuring position the experience users as the of locus choice, of controlaccess, overand freedompotential while mates creating and the theex- perience of queer space. Navigating Grindr can be experientially boisterous—its interface - stuffed with a cascading grid of user photos, pop-up ads, and red noti utilizesfications a dots—butblack background how the throughoutapp slyly moves the application. to not be noticed This gives is just text as important as tracing how it renders the self and others salient. Grindr- thering this unobtrusive orientation, simplistic icons like a star (for fa- in each tab the illusion of floating in otherwise unarticulated space. Fur (messages) sit at the bottom of the screen, outlined in grey above the blackness.vorite profiles), Placing the these Grindr icons logo at (main the base interface), of the app’s and arectangle speech bubble frame, Grindr leans on Western habits of reading—from top to bottom, left to right— that draw people’s eyes away from the navigation buttons and upward to the squares of profiles in the top right corner. Scrolling up- and down the grid, pictures stack together horizontally and vertically to squeeze out any room for Grindr itself. The same happens when click ing into a nearby user’s profile; their square photo transforms into a full screen image. When swiping to the left or right on a full screen profile, another individual’s page swallows up the screen. Of course, Grindr is extractultimately data) the through portal by equally which minimalistic these pictures design. exist, but the app’s display minimizes the evidence of its labor to host profiles (and subsequently Self-centeredness

Grindr’s interface and geolocative protocol build an image of a queer a user’s location like an explosion’s blast radius, Grindr calculates the world where the user is centered in queer space. Moving outward from distance between individuals’ phones. The app then loads an interface Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 12

Aunspach in - structuresindividualized crafted for each in queer person spaces. who Insteadlogs in, ordering of traveling other to Grindra designated mem spot,bers frommelting closest into ato moment, farthest and away. riding This its refigures spontaneity, previous people relational have access and controls to navigate these spaces as if they only exist for a themselves-because algorithmically, they do.

Behind this flow of profiles ordered on proximity lies a trap, a social two-way mirror. Grindr’s circumference-driven distance measurements- cation.privilege Tall user buildings clustering. and People multifamily who log housing, into Grindr usually in citiesabsent and from urban ru- centers are flooded with profiles one to two miles away from their lo outerral and rings some of suburbantheir individualized areas, add calculations, to the wash city of profiles members since appear Grindr on does not include elevation when calculating proximity. Positioned on the-

Inrural addition users’ tointerfaces, composing whereas a pervasive, those spreadself-centered out by visualsmall townrepresenta devel- tionopment of the and queer urban community, sprawl are lostGrindr’s in the algorithm gaps of the excludes app’s GPS the protocols. country- side and rural queer people from queer imaginaries by literally erasing their presence from Grindr’s interface.

Bodily substitution

After quieting itself and fore-fronting users as the center of Grindr’s body of a potential interlocutor. Grindr soaks up the energy of touch throughqueer space, its navigational the app intervenes gestures. in aGrindr flirtatious (like way, mobile standing phones in forgener the- - tract the physicality of sex, the erotics of intimate bodies, and the plea- ally) inserts itself between two users’ attempts to connect, so it can ex tracingsures of the mingling. outline Toof amove mate’s throughout back or connecting Grindr, subscribers the freckles simply on some flick- one’stheir fingersskin, Grindr’s upward, interface downward, invites or peopleside-to-side. to tickle Like their a curious screens. digit To

- oneenter on a theprofile shoulder and subsequently to get their attention message (andsomeone, never individuals mind the actual must “Taps”press on users a profile’s can send picture to each with other a singular to forcefully finger vibratelike tapping the body some of - a person they find worthy of extra affection). Temporally, Grindr situ ates users within a never-ending sexual “interstitial time”—a lingering, Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 13

Aunspach in - sometimes alienating inbetweenness people fill with a constant surf ing of the app (and waves of potential desire) while waiting for the next message, the next tickle, the next hump (Mowlabocus, 2016, para.- lizing35). Even touchscreens when Grindr and is tactilenot open, alerts, the phoneGrindr bulges trains in users a user’s to give pocket, the pleasurehumming of like touch, a personal externalize massager the joys with of everyconnection, single message.and crave By vibra uti- tions and taps from the app under the guise they are really sent from another person’s hand.

Such a substitutive logic that replaces people with phones edges into phonessketchy in territory their hands, regarding the pictures consent. on Users,their screens, without the any desires distractions perco- from a busy interface, enter Grindr with their senses attuned to the - cationlating in of their sexual bodies, practice and that the meansopens theto produce door to pleasures.an assertive, However, one-sided the conflation of touchscreens with the bodies of other users is an intensifi Grindr affords users more control over the uncertainty of attraction, force that overcomes the limits of consent between queer individuals. flirtation, and sex present in both straight and queer spaces like bars and coffee shops. It invites users to diddle with the app to “facilitate… awareness of the self and other, while simultaneously providing an on- going site of trust, security and comfort” (Mowlabocus, 2016, para. 8),- an almost salty–sweet and extractive intimacy easier than in-person- cruising. Blocking co-constitutive relationality with an always on, al- sequence.ways available Taken phone-body together, continuity only further is an solidifies individualized the individual-cen design choice bytered Grindr logics that of the keeps app, the habituating app present the attouching all times of inothers users’ without lives, evencon standing in for their mate’s bodies. This ensures both that Grindr has - ample data to monetize and that users keep comfortably waiting for at tention within the app’s borders. Constraints its pleasurable continuity and constraining their in-app access to suckle deliciousGrindr maintains data off theira fine social balance production. between attractingAlthough theymembers seem throughopposi- tional, continuity and constraint work together to prompt persistent Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 14

Aunspach in app usage for both free and paying members. I characterize constraint its effort to squeeze users’ identities into sortable selves. I then analyze through three movements. First, I discuss Grindr’s profile structure and- how Grindr pesters users through limitations and advertisements to pro homogenizingmote in-app purchases. individuals’ Finally, experience I unpack of how queer these space. two forms—sortable selves and Grindr’s pestering—encourage users to filter each other out, Composing a sortable self

- displayGrindr controlsname, “about how usersme,” stats, manage expectations, their impressions identity, sexualupon others. health, Usso- ers are given seven content areas with which to compose themselves: - cial links, and a profile picture. For example, display names must be less menusthan 15 listing characters body andtypes, profile sexual descriptions positions, and less ethnicities than 250. Digitssituate indicat corpo- realing a performances person’s age, weight,into tidy and categories. height quantify Grindr theusers body, run while into hard dropdown limits on their self-expression, driving them to be brief, direct, and evocative.

I acknowledge filling out profile information is standard practice- gersacross that many Grindr dating places platforms. back on However, individuals. a queer As individualGrindr made translating clear in their experiences into a biological and social profile comes with dan- - April 2018, the company approaches users’ profiles as completely pub lic information. It had no qualms with sharing data on people’s serostatuses and locations with partner businesses (Singer, 2018). Grindr does- castnot hide the contentthat it uses discussed these rich in the caches next of section. information—like As a consequence, profiles, these con sameversations, identity and markers screen time—to also render attract individuals advertisers easily and digestible further narrow by others, distilling attraction into numbers for quick consumption. These constraints train users to become and expect sortable selves that simplify in the background. attraction while Grindr quietly extracts and monetizes this information Pestering for purchases

Although Grindr creates a self-centered experience for users that en- courages intimacy with their phones, the app also interrupts its own Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 15

Aunspach in - tion to Grindr Xtra. Grindr Xtra is a suite of extended services available forfreeing a monthly orientation fee that to frustrate reprieve people people in from hopes some they limits will buy the aapp subscrip places on users’ experiences. For example, Grindr Xtra increases the number of

- profiles a person can see on their home screen. For US $19.99 a month, $39.99 for 3 months, or even $99.99 a year, Grindr will get out of an indi ofvidual’s neoliberalism, way and expandbut it is theirstill in vision the service of this ofqueer homoconnectivity. space by sixfold. Grindr This focus on selling users a product resonates with the consumptive logics Subscribers boost their pleasurable experience of its continuity and po- tentiallybrilliantly escalate convinces their users amount to pay of moneytime and toward social their production own monetization. on the app, further adding to Grindr’s troves of extracted data. Advertisements, sold by Grindr to reach exactingly niche audiences, a speed trap of sorts that paying customers can avoid. In exchange for theirsimilarly time slow and down attention, a free Grindr user’s removesability to thesemove obstructionswithin its interface— from its otherwise smooth interface. Continuing with the above example, when a free member scrolls past the fixed 100 profiles Grindr populates on its- home page, a photo of a shirtless twunk-in-training wearing a wide brim hishat collarfreezes bones: a user’s “Watch motion. a video.” “See 50 After more a 30- profiles” second, reads full-screen the text video cov ering his scruffy mouth; a bright yellow button sits horizontally across Wheel of Fortune, increasing the platform’s projection of queer space by 50advertisement, percent. Watch-to-play Grindr’s wall advertisements of profiles refreshes intervene like all the throughout letter tiles a uson- - er’s experience— such as clicking new profiles, viewing someone’s pho astos, long and as using people the keepapp’s peeping. city-wide search function. These ads pull users’ eyeballs while pushing people toward paying for Grindr Xtra, profiting Filtering

- ity create problematic incentives for users to homogenize their experi- enceWhen of brought queer space. together, A person, Grindr’s free constraints or paying, can on profilesonly see anda limited accessibil num-

Type,” individuals can save a default combination of sorting parameters. Inber its of free profiles version, on their these home includes screen, age, making the type space of interaction scarce. Labeled a user “My is Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 16

Aunspach in

- looking for (e.g. friends, dates, and sex “right now”), and a tribe, a sub-- tive.community Through label naming like twinks,this “My geeks, Type,” and Grindr daddies. helps Setting people Grindr’s rationalize fil ter maximizes a user’s odds they will encounter mates they find attrac- son’s sexual preferences are immutable. Filtering is just a logical, non- these exclusions by drawing upon an essentialist discourse that a per- political expression of what someone is attracted to. What could oth- lengingerwise becongruence. a heterophilic orientation to queer space and intimacies is disruptedFiltering by and a reliance its promotion on filters of to homophily curate this highlights experience homoconnec into unchal- - sizes the consequences of “not [being] the right kind of queer” (Ahmed, 2014,tivity’s p. intensification 151). Homonormativity of queer space.brings Grindrintersectional replicates discrimination and metasta to the surface, but homoconnectivity foregrounds Grindr’s motivation to make users’ experiences as seamless, individualized, and homogenized of challenges ageist (and for paid members—racist, sizeist, femmepho- as possible to then extract queer social production. This affirms instead- bic, etc.) exclusion as smart, profitable design. Ultimately, Grindr’s strat difference.egy to induce filtering by constraining users’ experiences congeals in people’s imaginations that queer space consists of selfish similarity, not

Queer world-taking?

- Grindr, a queer-for-queer dating and hookup app, profits from the social production of its users like their sexual desires, flirtations, mo socialbility, hookups,production and and common potentiality culture. from Homoconnectivity—which queer communities through I have on- defined as an arrangement of power that profits from the extraction of - line spaces, social media, technologies, and/or software—keys critics toand themselves, users into ato new other modality queer individuals, of rainbow capitalismto potential beyond (sexual) commodifi partners, tocation. their By phones, constituting and to and queer controlling imaginaries, the means Grindr by gathers which and people crunches relate importantdata to then because sell advertisements Grindr and similar displayed programs to its areusers. used Acknowledging by millions of this logic of extraction otherwise quieted on geolocative dating apps is Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 17

Aunspach in queer people a day, especially those closeted, in rural areas, and looking for sober spaces. -

What types of queer futures swirl within and beyond homoconnectiv ity? Grindr offers its own vision. In June 2019, the company unleashed its latest innovation: Grindr Unlimited. For US $39.99 a month, users- buy the ability to scroll an endless queue of profiles, see who has viewed furthertheir page, “transforms and know public when spaceanother into user private is typing space, a reply: thereby a homocon reducing nective intensification that sells users surveillance, a connectivity that the contact sport of cruising to a practice of networking” (Dean, 2009,- p. 194). However, the machinery of Grindr Unlimited might be monkey- wrenchedThe affordances toward the undergirding end of queer homoconnectivity world-making asmay opposed provide to oppor practices of what I name queer world-taking. agency that zaps life into possibilities like the screens of technologies tunities for circuit reversals, a digital queer world-making with buzzing athemselves. “space of entrances, I envision exits, this politicsunsystematized of digital lines queer of world-makingacquaintance, proas a- jectednetworked horizons, evocation typifying of whatexamples, Berlant alternate and Warner routes, (1998)blockages, narrated [and] inas- acommensurate common form geographies” of messy connectivity (p. 558). Networked that need nottechnologies relate “to deservedomes- ticour space, attention to kinship, and engagement to the couple since form, they to share property, with queeror to the intimacies nation” to(Berlant identify & and Warner, counter 1998, homoconnectivity—to p. 558). In short, we dream, can and disclose, must docode, better and than Grindr and its politics of extractive queer world-taking. The need be clearer. enact new futures—by making common, queer worlds online could not

Notes

1. I recognize the homo- in homoconnectivity may center same-sex forms of attraction.

- standingHowever, of it privacycuts both as ways.more thanHomo-, an individual’sin its connotations property of rights. sameness, emphasizes connectivity as a collective risk for queer communities that requires a new under

nod to 1990s vernacular usage in trans enclaves (Stryker, 2008) or robustly open 2. Duggan’sintersectional homonormativity futures (Aiello plucks et al., at 2013). definitional tensions. For example, it does not Critical Studies in Media Communication (2019) 18

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