Gay dating apps Scruff and Jack’d will follow the lead of Grindr in eliminating race-based filters in user searches.
Perry Street Software, the company that owns both Scruff and Jack’d, issued a statement Tuesday via Scruff’s Twitter account. The company also said it would make donations to advocacy groups Color of Change and to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute in solidarity with the ongoing protests against police brutality around the United States.
We stand in solidarity with the fight against systemic racism and historic oppression of the Black community. Black Lives Matter. Below are some of the actions that we will be taking. pic.twitter.com/NOBgTQqfq3
— SCRUFF (@scruffapp) June 2, 2020
“We stand in solidarity with the fight against systemic racism and historic oppression of the Black community,” the statement began. “Black Lives Matter.”
Related: Grindr marks the start of Pride month by ditching its ethnicity filter
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“Our community is no stranger to fighting a status quo that tells us we don’t matter”, the statement read. “In the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless other Black Americans, to be silent is to be complicit. We recognize that awareness is no substitute for action, and so we call on our community to do what it does best: organize, fight oppression and create change.”
“We commit to continue to make product improvements that address racism and unconscious bias across our apps. In 2018 we removed ethnicity as a default display option on profiles; we will soon be making further changes to make sure ethnicity is not searchable.”
Dating apps like Grindr, Scruff and Jack’d have come under renewed fire in the wake of the nationwide protests for allowing users to sort potential dates by race. Critics point out that eliminating or preferring entire groups of people based on ethnicity fosters and systemizes racism both inside and outside the queer community.
Black Pegasus
I agree with this action, however I can also predict problems ahead. Now ALL races will have to show up at the same virtual pub if they want a date/fling. It will be a crowded mess. lol
Prax07
This really changes nothing, just going to be using the Block feature more.
Neoprene
But I like filtering out the white guys.
Chrisk
“we removed ethnicity as a default display option on profiles”
Many users have already removed themselves into the other or mixed category. The real question is why are you ashamed of your race? I like all races. Be proud of it.
So freaking ridiculous. Preference does not = racism. Yeah, rejection sucks but we all have to put on our big boy pants and face it. As others have pointed out it just means more blocking.
Gadfeal
There may be a bit of a kerfuffle (if that’s the spelling), but there would be howls of protest if they eliminate “size” as a feature. Some are blind to race, age, physical condition or even health status and are ONLY focused on one statistic. They’re the one in spaces for anonymous encounters, face down down, cheeks prominently exposed.
ewr767
Well I guess it won’t change anything with attitudes like that. Imagine if the people who fought in stonewall said this will change nothing. You gotta start somewhere and we all know gays are some of the most JUDGEMENTAL group of people there are when it comes to their own minority
Chrisk
You’re seriously comparing getting bashed in the head and arrested to being rejected on Grindr? Lol
Gary Q VV
Yeah, being ‘filtered out’ of society kinda rings a bell for Gay (LGBTQ) folks. You don’t like being eliminated from society, but you don’t want to be associated with POC, do you? By the way, as I’ve commented before regarding Grindr – it’s now owned by a Beijing company and assuredly closely monitored by The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) …”Smile, You’re On Chinese Communist Party Candid Camera!!”.
PS: The same Chinese company owns a straight dating app called ‘Blendr’; they’ve got their sights on world infiltration, intimidation, then domination.
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
I know this sounds a bit off the mark or better yet outright babbling but for some reason the iPhone and what it sure as hell did cause led to a lot of what we are seeing now. Once upon a time you exchanged phone numbers with people whom you met in bars and clubs and actually called them on the phone and TALKED to them. People didn’t walk down the street texting when those phones came out. They walked down the street actually talking to each other. Once iPhones and other forms of must have portable gadgets became the order of the day along with affordable plans a tsunami of “get the F out of my face” in text messaging instead of conversation took the entire gay community into another world that to this day I still don’t understand. I think personally it made the majority of the community even lonelier than they were before all of this began. Every one and their mother started getting youtube channels and asking did you watch this or hear the latest on that persons channel. I remember an older queen in NYC walking out into moving traffic at 8th ave and 14th street because she was so wrapped up in reading a text message on her phone. Thank god she didnt get hit. Next came the b/s about what gym was a must be a member of gym and to hell with the cost. Reading newspapers went out of style so there went the printed gay press that had knowledgeable people who understood journalism and gave birth to any drunk or drug addict with an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy the power of a publisher if they happened to know at least forty or fifty people who would then pass along their websites to the point where they had a full online tabloid up and running. That mentality was what gave us the birth of Queerty back around 2008 or 2009. I even remember Keith Boykin’s the DailyVoice.com and Rodonline.typepad.com were must reads. Both went the way of the dodo.
Now comes the death of the online dating sites and in my opinion I don’t see that as a bad thing. It might force people to understand that text ordered sex has its pitfalls and is no longer worth it. If people are already posting pics they got off the internet and claim its them can’t you just imagine how many people are going to lie about their ethnicity in text messages or in this case how many people are going to demand to hear a voice for proof that they are what they say they are in text and the surprise they’ll get once they show up? I see a lot of cases coming up where I’ll wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the meeting took place. l can already hear the shrieks, screams, blank stares of “you’ve got to be kidding”, ” aw come on, this is a joke now tell me who put you up to this”. lol lol Happy hunting girls and who knows, maybe bars, clubs and the art of conversation might get a second life behind all of this. Lord I can already hear the howls at happy hour “I opened the door because I just knew I had seen that old queen at my grandpa’s funeral and his senile as came over to offer his condolences ” or “look son, I am not going to jail because of kid with barely enough pubic hair to brush”, “does your mother know where you are”. lol lol Since nude pics have been banned (or so I hear) on most sites where else can this be going? I thank all of these sites for doing this and can’t wait to see the response from them once the revenue begins to dry up and Queerty thanks for the laugh this article provided me. I’m going to bed happy I lived to see the birth and now the downward spiraling death of all of this online dating b/s.
Heywood Jablowme
I’m most mystified by the ones whose profiles say (for instance) they are 5’8″, 240 pounds and “average” build.
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
I’ll bet you would be even more mystified by the ones in the gyms who have mid-50’s wrote all over them but workout as though they are still in their twenties. I have no problem with the ones who do it for the sake of staying fit but the ones who are doing it in the hope that dyed hair and laser hair removed via surgery are the ones that really made me sick when I lived in NYC. Its unfortunate that the young’uns who turn their noses up and the older ones are doomed to repeat what I described. Some of you reading this should think of it as eerily peering into the future and rest assured you are going to have a hard time growing old if you think every compliment from an older guy means you are being asked for a date.
Brian
I always loved the guys who cut off the photo right at the tip of their chin. As if it wasn’t obvious they were trying to hide everything below that.
Josh447
There is also the science angle that may be useful. I think it’s safe to say that most if not all species on earth stick together with their own kind, with minor, maybe up to 5% overlap with humans sexually. It might be good for those in question to look at this fact as it is genetic and is basically a fixed state.
We carry approx 98% monkey DNA. Different primate breeds stick with their own kind, they do not intermix sexually, though a handful of humans do. I don’t think this basic fact can change in any major way for humans.
Acceptance could be a helpful key for all aspects of this human sexual anomaly.
Intermixing happens for humans, it’s just a very low percentage so all is not lost. Like gays being 5ish percent of the entire population, intermix is just as few and far between.
demetreus
Kudos to Grindr, Scruff and Jack’d!! It’s not about whether this change will make a difference. We don’t care about your threats to use the block feature more. Stop trying to take this moment away from us. It’s not about your “preference”. You can’t stop this change from happening. It’s a new day and I am here for it. I can now look at the insensitive comments above and feel pity for those of you who feel the need to release your hate. Go ahead and block me because of the color of my skin. I wouldn’t even care to know that you exist anyway.