To browse Academia. This chapter explores the experiences of recent gay immigrants using geosocial dating apps in the greater Copenhagen area, specifically Grindr and PlanetRomeo. It analyzes the ways these platforms facilitate social and logistical networking for gay immigrants while also highlighting the challenges of encountering prejudice and exclusion online. Through profile text analysis and interviews with ten immigrants, the study examines how users transform their profiles into spaces for social activism, addressing issues of race and discrimination in their interactions.
This book 1. Investigates how gay-identified immigrants and refugees experience feelings of inclusion or exclusion within a sexually-charged online subculture 2. Explores the response of ethnic minorities to demonstrations of racism and xenophobia within an intolerant European climate 3.
Challenges political rhetoric that labels immigrants from Muslim-majority countries as sexually conservative and homophobic or as victims in need of saving This book examines the role of hook-up apps in the lives of gay, bi, trans, and queer immigrants and refugees, and how the online culture of these platforms promotes belonging or exclusion.
Within the context of the so-called European refugee crisis, this research focuses on the experiences of immigrants from especially Muslim-majority countries to the greater Copenhagen area, a region known for both its progressive ideologies and its anti-immigrant practices. Grindr and similar platforms connect newcomers with not only dates and sex, but also friends, roommates and other logistical contacts.
But these socio-sexual platforms also become spaces of racialization and othering. Weaving together analyses of real Grindr profile texts, immigrant narratives, political rhetoric, and popular media, Immigrants on Grindr provides an in-depth look at the complex interplay between online and offline cultures, and between technology and society. In fact, phone app Grindr, whose tag line is find gay, bi, curious guys near you, recently reported that a record-setting Men use these sites to meet other men for chatting, friendship, and most often for sexual and romantic encounters.
