Fun with Grindr: The White-Acting Experiment

People on the gay online “networking” scene do the strangest things in the US! There are the people who are looking for “friends only” or “NOT looking for sex” but have ass pictures posted. There are several who are “happily partnered and not looking” but post shirtless pictures of themselves. And there are the guys who are thoughtful enough to provide lists of attributes for guys to use as guidelines before interacting with them. Most common: “muscle 4 muscle,” “masculine guys only,” and “white… looking for similar.”

The last two are absolutely hilarious to me (and I see them in NYC more often than you'd think). And one day as I was scrolling through profiles, it occurred to me: what if these guys who are looking for ‘white only’ aren’t necessarily talking about physical phenotype. Maybe they were just avoiding the ‘whadup yo’ greetings from hoodrats, holding out for compete sentences. Maybe the baggy jeans, fitted caps and white tees are a turn-off for them. What if they just associate these behaviors with black people in general and aren’t used to seeing a more… let’s say ‘mainstream’ type of black person.

Out of these ponderings came the Grindr white-acting experiment. For a week, I changed my Grindr profile to this:

Needless to say, it was a slow week on Grindr for me, but got mixed results as far as responses.

Um... have you heard any black comic talk about “what they say” about white guys? Maybe we should avoid the stereotypical paradigms: it’s not a good look for you.

Hint: I didn't do all those crunches and planks to have you compliment my allegedly dinosaur-sized dick. If you're gonna compliment, compliment what you can see.

Some didn't bother reading the profile text at all.

“Would you have said ‘your’ if I were white?!”

And no, you can't touch it.

Others were careful not to make assumptions.

…if you’re rich.

Shout out to the equality crusaders!

But Eminem could still get it.

New rule: let's just avoid any word that is rooted in the word “nigger.”

One guy who messaged me had obviously not gotten caught by the Grindr Decency Police yet. He was Latin, and his profile picture was his (very nice) ass getting penetrated by a (very dark) dick. It wasn’t the clearest of pictures, but I saw no evidence of a condom. Not long after he messaged me, he changed it to a non-penetration picture of his ass. Profiles like this make me laugh because I always go into these things trying to put my best foot forward for a good first impression. It’s sad when you have to spend most of your life with your best feature covered up.

Anyway, here’s the conversation (in its entirety)…

I have no idea whether or not that was related to the text in my profile or not, but I had to share.

Don’t be that guy.

Please keep in mind that this post in intended with the same tongue-in-cheek sarcasm as the rest of my posts. I would never go after someone who targeted me because he thought I acted 'white. And I would never be sincere in describing myself as 'white-acting... but bourgie's a different story.

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