UC Irvine

This paper uses autoethnography to examine locative media — specifically, the location–based social network app Grindr — in the context of spatial practices. Because of the way it integrates the physical location of a user in the construction of a digital space, its curious political and logistical challenge to previously defined spatial arrangements such as gay villages, and the negotiation over interpersonal relations its use entails, Grindr poses a unique case to examine questions around space and locative media. I argue that Grindr harkens back to Pre–Stonewall modes of cruising and socializing through the manipulation of cues, codes, and symbols and disturbs the link between spatial arrangements based on co–presence and gay identity politics.