What a “popular” app filter reveals about gay dating (hint: it isn’t pretty)

Grindr’s “Popular” filter presents a new feature only available to guys desperate enough as I am to pay for gay dating apps. And clicking it may be the easiest magic trick a gay man can summon. That’s because the virtual faces of Black profiles—guys who look like me—just… vanish. Like Thanos snapping his fingers. Poof. Gone. 

The so-called “popular” users blur together: chiseled jaws, endless abs, that suspiciously even tan. Most are tops and under 40. I stared at my screen, a little surprised, a little angry, especially when I realized that a headless, white torso still made the cut. I pictured some alternate reality where Black and brown guys got the same “hi :)” energy as Grindr’s parade of white torsos. Sounds like science fiction, right? 

Although, I could quickly realize that the telecommunications empire resting in my hand isn’t fully to blame. Yet, “Grindr is racist!” remains a tidy headline. Convenient, too. But we all know how these filters really work—popularity on Grindr is all about who gets messaged, who gets tapped, who gets blocked. The app is just crunching the data, holding up a mirror. The code didn’t teach human beings to be racist, preferring whiteness over Blackness. It’s the people using it, their choices adding up to a grid where people like me are wiped away with a single click.

Although, when Grindr rolled out the “popular” filter, they had to know what it would reveal about who gets attention—and who doesn’t. Or at least I could hope as much.

I hope the platform is working to address the unintended outcomes of the “popular” filter. It would involve listening closely to users of color, thoughtfully redesigning features to be more inclusive, and making intentional choices—even when it’s complex or costly. Until then, Grindr’s “commitment to diversity” risks being seen as a surface-level gesture rather than a fully realized change in users’ everyday experience.

Sometimes I want to slam the phone shut and delete Grindr altogether—make a quiet protest by walking away. But then I think about the bars I’ve been to, the rooms pulsing with music and laughter, and the faces I see clustered tight in the center while others linger in the shadows. I see the way some eyes scan the room, skipping over certain people without a glance, how the circle of conversation tightens around familiar faces, leaving others on the edges, invisible. The app just puts that same scene on a screen, a digital echo of the real world.

Leaving the app won’t do anything, I ultimately concede. It won’t wash away years of whispered judgments or the way people glance away on the street. Those biases aren’t coded into an app—they live in the way we hold ourselves, the words we don’t say, the lines we draw without thinking. The only way through is to name those lines, to sit in the discomfort of those conversations—where “preferences” aren’t just harmless choices but stories shaped by history, culture, and fear. Change comes not from escape, but from reckoning with the full, messy truth.

So what do I do? I catch myself in moments—when a joke about “types” slips out at a gathering, or when I scroll past someone on the app without a second glance—and I pause. There’s a quiet unease that settles in, a reminder that these are the biases I’ve absorbed, sometimes without realizing it. When friends laugh off comments that box people into narrow categories, I speak up—not always smoothly, but with intention—because silence feels like agreement. I lean in harder when someone shares a story of their personal experience or a smile that doesn’t fit my usual idea of attraction, forcing myself to look beyond the surface. It’s a constant effort, like trying to focus in a noisy room; some days, I see clearly, and I connect. Other days, the old patterns sneak back in, and I miss the chance to really see someone for all that they are. It’s messy and imperfect, but it’s the only way forward.

Again, that “popular” filter didn’t create the problem—it only pulled back the curtain, making the biases and exclusions that have long existed impossible to overlook. It magnified what many of us have felt but couldn’t quite name, showing us in stark contrast who is seen and who is erased. For all the discomfort it brings, maybe that’s exactly what we need: a jarring wake-up call that forces us to confront these patterns head-on. 

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone. They do not reflect the opinions or positions of San Francisco AIDS Foundation. SFAF serves as a resource on new developments in HIV prevention and treatment, strategies for living well with HIV, and LGBTQ health issues. Our goal is to inform, empower, and inspire conversation.