What do MAGA supporters and the LGBTQ community have in common? Well, more than we might think, according to social media users.
Hordes of republicans and MAGA supporters gathered to pay tribute to the controversial far-right activist, Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead while speaking at a college in Utah earlier this month.
President Donald Trump hailed Kirk as a “great American hero” and a “martyr” during his speech to tens of thousands of supporters on September 21st.
Social media users compared the event to WrestleMania, as the pyrotechnics and fireworks punctuated the entrance of Kirk’s widow, evoking images of pure Americana.
While some social media users had fun taking jabs at Erika and Trump's odd displays of affection on stage at the memorial, other netizens reported a strange coincidence in the digital space that couldn’t go unnoticed.
Users reported that Grindr, the popular gay dating app, had gone down in Glendale, Arizona, specifically in the area where the memorial service was being held.
DownDetector, a site where users can self-report outages, indicated that Grindr’s servers were down in Arizona during the memorial.
This suggests that a fraction of the nearly 100,000 attendees had used the Grindr app during or after the event, essentially painting the MAGA crowd as closeted homosexuals.
Over 160 outage reports were submitted to DownDetector with the platform’s heat map showing the main area affected by the outage was in Arizona, as per a viral X post found by Yahoo.
WOW. Look at Grindr in Phoenix and Glendale, Arizona! The servers can't handle it, it's the Charlie Kirk effect. pic.twitter.com/o8uFlFlVLu
undefined TheRealThelmaJohnson (@TheRealThelmaJ1) September 22, 2025
As to be expected, social media users ran with the information from the parody account and started posting their own homemade memes about the “coincidence.”
“Anyone happen know what's going on in Glendale, AZ, that would cause an outage? Hint: The reason why Grindr crashes during the Republican National Convention (RNC), said one user.
Anyone happen know what's going on in Glendale AZ that would cause an outage? Hint: The reason why Grindr crashes during the RNC. pic.twitter.com/Z5yyg1CMx0
undefined Lore Hardee (@loreofthepast) September 22, 2025
“Grindr’s servers prolly went up in flames trying to process the amount of users in one place at one time,” said another user.
grindrs servers prolly went up in flames trying to process the amount of users in one place at one time https://t.co/Hvj0veH7Rz
undefined trey🪤 (@MschvousCat47) September 21, 2025
Although this may be a fun conspiracy theory for some social media users, Grindr’s official status update page shows that there was no outage on September 21st when the memorial was held.
Cybernews has reached out to Grindr for comment.
Users reported a similar situation at the RNC in Milwaukee in 2024, as people submitted over 1,000 reports to DownDetector claiming Grindr outages in the area.
However, the theory that Republicans were using Grindr en masse was debunked by NewsWeek.
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