With no points for subtlety, the advertisements, created by the LA-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, depict two silhouetted pairs of people (one apparently heterosexual and the other homosexual), each with a word plastered onto their heads – “Tinder” and “Grindr” are shown on the right sided member of the couple, while “Chlamydia” and “Syphilis” are seen on the left sided person respectively.
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The billboards erected in LA this month feature a male silhouette figure with the “Grindr” logo kissing another man with “gonorrhea” over his face. In September, Tinder made headlines for firing out a barrage of tweets in response to aVanity Fair article by Nancy Jo Sales that took the dating app to task for being all sex and no substance. As a outcome, Tinder claimed the message of the campaign was baseless and has already threatened to sue the foundation. Though they have not confirmed if they have asked to remove the billboards, a spokesperson from the company said they are now discussing the issue.
“It’s logical, if you can be hooked up with someone in an urban area within minutes”, foundation president Michael Weinstein told The Associated Press, “of course you’re going to have to more STDs”.
However, Tinder and Grindr are are unhappy about the ads.
The billboards were run in an effort to draw attention to increasing STD rates and to encourage testing.
The AHF has stated that casual sex is now “as easily available as ordering pizza”, and that the two companies would have been wiser to portray themselves as concerned for their users and working alongside them.
The organization, which has also lobbied for stricter regulation of the adult film industry and, controversially, against a new preventative HIV drug called PrEP, says that the quick and casual encounters made possible by dating apps are a “digital bathhouse for millennials, wherein the next sexual encounter can literally just be a few feet away – as well as the next STD”.
“While Tinder strongly supports such testing, the billboard’s statements are not founded upon any scientific evidence and are incapable of withstanding critical analysis”, the cease and desist order stated, according to CNN Money.
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Tinder, which launched in 2012, is a location-based social discovery application, which facilitates communication between known or unknown users that are interested in each other. Grindr, which began in 2009, is the top app for gay men.
