Contributed by: kellyseal on Wednesday, March 09 2022 @ 11:33 am
Last modified on Wednesday, March 09 2022 @ 05:01 pm
The Right Stuff, a new dating app to help conservatives connect more easily, is set to launch this summer. Peter Thiel, a billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded PayPal, has already signed on as an investor, according to Axios.
Thiel has invested $1.5 million in the new app, whose target market are conservative daters who live in large cities that tend to be more liberal. The app will debut in Washington D.C. and at first will be invitation-only. It will be free to download and use, with paid and subscription options added later for those who want access to more features.
John McEntee, a former political aide for the Trump administration, founded the dating app to help conservative singles find like-minded partners. “Conservatives deserve an easy way to connect,” McEntee said to Axios[*1] .
Marketing might be complicated, as there is already a dating app named The Right Stuff, targeted to Ivy League students, graduates, and faculty, but that isn’t deterring McEntee. Nor is the fact that the new app also shares a name with a white supremacist site, according to Chicago’s WGN News[*2] .
Dating apps are only one platform where conservatives are pulling away from more mainstream options. Former President Trump just launched his own social media app called Truth Social, modeled after Twitter but meant for more conservative-leaning users. According to a press release, the app is meant to be a place where users don’t have to engage with “self-righteous scolds and self-appointed arbiters,” according to The Hill who reported on the launch.
Rumble, a conservative platform similar to YouTube, has also surged in popularity among the far right, going from one million to thirty-nine million users as of January. (In comparison, YouTube has two billion monthly active users, so there is still a wide gap.) Parler, another right-wing app similar to Twitter, and Telegram, an encrypted social messaging app, have also taken off in the last couple of years.
Notably, Thiel was an investor in Rumble. The New York Times said he was backing the new dating app as part of an effort by conservatives to create a new media ecosystem apart from the mainstream, which they perceive to be too liberal. Many media and social platforms have pushed back, pointing to how these right-wing platforms spread disinformation that is politically motivated.
The spread of disinformation has become a growing problem around the world, thanks to the widespread use of social media platforms like Meta (formerly Facebook) who push back against increased content monitoring. The company is starting to address the issues on its platform following former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony against the company on Capitol Hill.
The Right Stuff will be available on iOS devices only, at least for now.