Grindr has been the gay internet’s town square forever. It’s the app you open to find a hookup, an underground rave, and three guys named Matt within 200 feet. Once a year, all of that gets turned into data, and that’s how we get GRINDR UNWRAPPED 2025: a stats dump pulled from 15 million+ monthly users and over 32,000 votes in its pop-culture polls. What it proves is that, yet again, queer people aren’t just following culture; they’re beta-testing it for everyone else.
MORE HOOKUP HELP: A No-Bullshit Guide to Using Grindr for the First Time
The Church of Motherhood Is in Session
First, the sacred titles. Lady Gaga cleaned up as Mother of the Year, which feels correct in a world where her album Mayhem also snagged Album of the Year and her Monster Ball tour made Grindr usage spike nearly 7% in cities on show nights.
On deck as Mother-in-Training is Sabrina Carpenter, Pedro Pascal took Daddy of the Year, because obviously, while KATSEYE grabbed Girl Group of the Year, and Jonathan Bailey was crowned Hottest Man of the Year.
Speaking of objectification as a love language, Bad Bunny’s Calvin Klein campaign earned Best Bulge, with Bailey and David Corenswet also ranking in the “please take your pants off” discourse. Porn fans crowned Joey Mills as Porn Star of the Year, and the gays apparently spent 2025 soundtracked by Cardi B’s “WAP,” which showed up more than any other song on profiles.
BROADEN YOUR (HOOKUP) HORIZONS: AdultFriendFinder Review (Don’t Sleep on This OG Hookup Site)
The Global Gayborhood Has Notes
Unwrapped is also a reminder that, yes, every country is horny in its own special way. According to the report:
- Finland tops the charts for sending nudes
- South Korea leads in open relationships
- Switzerland has the highest percentage of twinks
- Italy is the most into feet
Meanwhile, “Hung” was the most searched profile tag globally, which feels extremely on-brand for an app built on three things: location, torso pics, and lying about height. The U.S. now has the highest percentage of self-proclaimed daddies by country, and both the U.S. and U.K. muscled their way into the top five for Hung Bottoms, in a ranking led by France.
The grid itself was busy, too: Grindr users sent 12.8+ billion taps this year, with 10 p.m. emerging as peak “Right Now” time to announce you are, in fact, ready to make mistakes. For travel, London was named the top city for a “Gaycation,” while Paris was the most coveted place to “Roam” in-app.
Gay TV and the Comeback Queens
Unwrapped also doubles as a chaotic syllabus for what you were supposed to be streaming in 2025. Benito Skinner’s queer coming-of-age series Overcompensating won Show of the Year, with The White Lotus, Severance, Too Much, and Adults rounding out the top five. If your group chat hasn’t had at least one fight about these, are you even in the community?
In the Comeback Queen category, Kesha took the crown, backed up by Lindsay Lohan, TikTok itself, Demi Lovato, and Pamela Anderson. Over on the gaming side, Dan and Phil were named Gaymers of the Year, while “Nothing beats a Jet2holiday” somehow became Viral Sound Bite of the Year, suggesting that no one loves a random, deeply specific meme more than queer people.
The Gay Internet Is Still the Blueprint
Taken together, GRINDR UNWRAPPED 2025 captures everything from who we’re thirsting over to how we define ourselves (daddies, twinks, hung bottoms, open relationships, foot guys, and beyond), and then turns it into a lawless, extremely honest snapshot of a year.
The mainstream internet moves fast, sure—but the gays move faster.
The post Inside Grindr Unwrapped 2025, the Gay Internet’s Yearbook appeared first on VICE.
