Thousands gathered at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, for a memorial service for Charlie Kirk on Sunday, Sept. 21. Many attendees wore "I am Charlie Kirk" shirts, MAGA hats, and carried American flags.
The event featured his widow, Erika Kirk, recently named CEO of Turning Point USA, as well as appearances from President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other GOP leaders.
Although Grindr’s official status page listed no issues on Sept. 21, social media users in Phoenix—about nine miles from the stadium—said they had trouble using the app. The crowdsourced tracker Downdetector.com reflected spikes in user-submitted reports shortly after 7 pm and again around 8 am the following day.
Of course, Downdetector visualizes user-submitted problem reports; it doesn’t independently verify outages, meaning anyone can report issues with any app or website for any reason.
This hasn't stopped the jokes across social media, however, as users speculated the timing was linked to the influx of Republican attendees and japed about a surge of app traffic near the stadium.
Downdetector reports spiked the day of the memorial
Correlation isn’t causation: Downdetector also showed spikes in other major cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
However, similar slowdowns appeared during past GOP gatherings, including the 2024 Republican National Convention, where Grindr struggled with concentrated traffic in host cities. This consistency fueled speculation that many attendees were active on the platform.
According to Vice, the 2016 RNC in Cleveland saw Grindr user traffic increase by 66%.
Nevertheless, Grindr did not acknowledge the issue. Its most recent listed problem occurred on Sept. 12, 2025, well before the memorial.
On X and TikTok, many people pointed out the irony of a Grindr slowdown during a celebration of a right-wing figure.
Others leaned into speculation about hypocrisy, with some comments asserting that a local spike would indicate that Republican men use the app.
"Republicans crashing grindr while supposedly at their good friend's memorial service would seem to undercut the message that it was about christ," wrote @BeigeFrequency.
One user tweeted, "You sure can tell when both MAGA and the Christian hard-right are in town at the same time. The Grindr app goes crazy, double or more the use of both San Francisco and LA put together."
Another X user joked, "It's the GOP convention all over again."
On the r/lgbt subreddit, users had the same idea. "Grindr should start tracking and increase service to the areas of RNC gatherings," joked u/LogJumpy94.
"New pizza index?" added u/AlliAioli.
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