George Santos Circulates RNC 'Grindr Super Bowl' Claim on Social Media

George Santos is back... in the news cycle, that is. Speaking about the Republican National Convention, the shamed ex-congressman posted a video that mentioned words from a satirical post about closeted gay Republicans.

"Santos uploaded a video to X/Twitter about a satirical post calling the RNC in Milwaukee 'Grindr's Super Bowl', referring to the popular gay dating and hook-up app," Pink News said.

"The post came from a satirical account called The Halfway Post which claimed that 'an executive' at Grindr had told them that the RNC is 'basically Grindr's Super Bowl' because of the potential surge in users in the area where the convention is held, suggesting that many Republicans may be closeted," the site continued.

For once, Santos wasn't caught in another falsehood. According to the Daily Mail, "Gay hookup app Grindr crashed after a spike of users around Milwaukee on Tuesday – the location of the Republican National Convention (RNC). More than 1,000 users reported a Grindr outage in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area around 4pm on Tuesday, according to data from website Downdetector."

"Savvy social media users quickly picked up on the spike. X user 'Computer_Gay' posted on Tuesday saying: 'Grindr experiencing outages due to unprecedented traffic in Milwaukee, WI.'"

Santos had some advice for his queer peers: "Let me tell you something: Just come out of the closet boys. Come on, it's fun. You can be gay and conservative, But look, Grindr is already outing you anyway based on the hits and guess who is in town? It's all you conservatives."

But because Grindr can be used anonymously, it makes it a great choice for the closeted. Data from previous conservative gatherings indicate that the app's usage is up at such events. "Users reported an increase in traffic around the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C. in March last year," the Daily Mail said.

"In 2015 the media outlet ReasonTV set up a Grindr profile to track down the app's users at that year's CPAC and received these comments from users: 'If we're true conservatives, we really don't want the government to be involved in our lives – period,' one Grindr user at CPAC told the show," according to the Mail.

Grindr itself tracked usage during the 2016 RNC convention in Cleveland, Ohio. "On the night check-in for the convention began, Grindr found a 120 percent increase in online users in the area, more than all previous evenings that month. Grindr usage near the Quicken Loans Arena where the conference was being held showed a 66 percent increase during the RNC. Among these visitors, 75 per cent were white, compared to 40 per cent of the average Grindr user base," the Mail reported.

Also in 2016, the New York Post reported male escorts were doing a brisk trade at the 2016 RNC. "Business has been way better. I've seen 10 clients so far," one male escort told the paper. "Most of them were first-timers. You could tell they were nervous, but once they became more comfortable, they seemed to be having a good time."

"The clientele has included mostly married white men between the ages of 40 and 50, said another escort who's seen eight johns so far," the Post said. The site continued to quote the escort: "'One of them was from Texas and visiting for the convention. He said he was a politician,' he said, claiming he didn't remember the client's name."