A major public memorial service for conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was held in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday, September 21. The event, which drew tens of thousands of attendees, was a highly publicized gathering.
While there is no official, direct link confirmed by Grindr, numerous reports from crowdsourced outage trackers and social media users indicate a significant spike in reported outages of the gay dating app in the Phoenix metropolitan area, which includes Glendale, on the day of the memorial service.
Many social media users attributed the outage to the large number of people attending the conservative event, a reference to closeted LGBTQ+ individuals in conservative politics. Similar online speculation occurred during the Republican National Convention in 2024, when Grindr also experienced reported outages in the host city of Milwaukee.
