I always like to say gay people are not a monolith, but I’d be damned if I said I’ve met more than a handful of gay people who have not been on Grindr at least once in their life. It turns out that our collective obsession with that app has allowed the brand to collect some pretty robust information on us, and is releasing its own version of Spotify Wrapped called Grindr Unwrapped, with data revealing which cities have the most tops, what tags users are searching for, and what songs all of us are putting on our profiles.
According to Grindr’s data, more than 100 billion messages were sent on that platform in 2023. Not all countries have the same types of users, though: Trinidad and Tobago have the most self-identified tops, while South Korea has the most self-identified bottoms. All the twinks are apparently in the Netherlands and all the daddies are in the U.S. (hello, show yourselves immediately). The countries with users who were most often looking for trans partners were also in the U.S., followed by the U.K. and India.
They also provided data for “sides” — a term used to refer to people who identify as neither tops or bottoms — which Grindr added as a sexual position on the app in 2022. The most commonly displayed song on profiles was “WAP” by Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B, followed by “7 Rings” by Ariana Grande, and “Happier than Ever” by Billie Elish. Clearly, we felt empowered in 2023.
The app also surveyed 10,000 users to figure out what the biggest gag-worthy pop-culture moments of 2023 were. Coming in hot at No. 1 was Troye Sivan’s “One of Your Girls” music video, in which he transformed himself into a beautiful, yearning girl. The song of the year was Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam.” Obviously. The biggest movie of the year for the gays was “Barbie.” Duh. “Mother of the Year” was awarded to Beyoncé. And “Biggest Babygirl” of the year was handed to Harry Styles.
Thankfully, Grindr collectively agreed that the biggest serve of the year were all of Beyoncé’s outfits on the Renaissance tour. And, despite the fact that “Pink Friday 2” has been out for less than two weeks, it made the top five albums of the year. We gotta give it to the Barbz — they’re committed.
Although this is a really fun snapshot of Grindr users around the world, it’s important to remember, of course, that all forms of queerness are valid, and that surveys like this could never reflect the full diversity and range of the queer community. Admittedly, there’s a part of me that doesn’t fully agree with every aspect of gay culture, especially labels that make it seem like the ways we experience pleasure are rigid and fixed.
For example, we don’t all need to identify as a “top,” “bottom,” or even a “side” exclusively. We’re evolving humans who might prefer different sensations at different times in our lives. For those reasons and others, I personally only look at these findings as harmless fun, as opposed to a true reflection of where the queer community is at. Except for the Beyoncé stat. She is, indisputably, the mother queen.
Luckily, queerness is increasingly moving us away from rigid labels, and maybe one day we won’t even be needing Grindr to tell us how to relate to each other. Till then, I guess I’ll be taking a trip to Trinidad.