Dating app Grindr launches LGBTQ online magazine, Into

Gay dating app Grindr has expanded into the digital publishing world with Into, its new online magazine. Having just celebrated its eighth birthday, this step sees the app and social network try to establish itself as a lifestyle brand. 

Aiming to celebrate and represent LGBTQ culture, the magazine will include interviews, videos, photography, and pop culture commentary. Over time Into will publish user-generated content, but ahead of its launch, Grindr has collated content from writers, photographers and filmmakers from all over the world including photographers Michael Bailey Gates and the late Ren Hang, as well as artist and author Slava Mogutin. 

The project is headed by former Wonderland production director, Oly Innes and founder and CEO of Grindr Joel Simkhai says of the project: “After hearing from our very engaged three million daily active users, it became clear that giving them content, through _Into_, that has a global perspective, but is also personalised and local, will help them connect to a whole range of things they need in their day to day life.” 

Into has replaced the Grindr.com homepage and is available on desktop and mobile, though there are currently no plans to launch a standalone app for the mag. 

The publication sits in line with Grindr’s other ventures over the past year with the app creating a set of emojis, called “Gaymoji” earlier in March and the publication of its first book by photographer and filmmaker Matt Lambert in December, which aimed to explore the role of “safe spaces, both physical and virtual, in the development of LGBTQ+ identity”.