GROWLR: Gay Bears Near You

In the current political climate, and when report reach newsrooms about the explosion of romance scammers online, I’m contacting my Growlr buddy list to let friends know the clusters on profiles using either the very same photos across 7 or 8 or more profiles posing as anywhere in the world or their distance could read as 100 ft away or less.i report stolen photos but the accounts just steal more photos and share between them. I’m been asked to pick up gift card on my way to meet one of these goons, then had the exact same messages from a different account 24 hours later. I report, and they don’t even get deleted, they just multiply. Consider that recent news has made the rounds about men being physically attacked by imposters using sites/apps to target violence against whoever takes the bait. Just browse the Galleries tab in the app and count how many times the same faces appear. Someone should be identifying who’s running the fake accounts and don’t let up when it comes to these spoof accounts and identify and inform the men whose pics are being posted all over, but especially in this app’s fake profiles. may be after money or be motivated by violence. It’s a shame because this app used to draw a friendlier,mixed crowd to it too.

The app keeps putting me 300km away from where I am. Totally messes up chances to meet up. Not worth it!

The rules are vague and without any vulgar language or terms, non-live members can boot you out? No message in app to explain why…thank god I didn’t take the paid subscription:)

Even with a band new iPhone, still getting these problems: - Anonymous Viewing keeps turning back off; - Why are some photos cropped at the bottom when opened?

The whole bear phenomenon is a pretty slippery subject. What was once a very progressive scene promoting body positivity and a disregard for ageism and the narrow standards of what mainstream gay culture considers attractive, in the ‘00s it became a commercialized contradiction with the same stereotypical “lifestyle package” as the mainstream gay scene that it once refused to buy into. Now we have “Bear™” which basically amounts to “circuit party with beards”. while heavyset, hirsute guys over 40 are lucky to get representation on the promotional materials for these events catering -more like targeting- the same segment of the community. Meanwhile, this app had been a positive example for years where a mix of different types, age brackets, and so on outside the cookie cutter mold generally mingled and attitude was rare. But an even bigger challenge now hardly seems to bother these app developers: fake accounts using stolen photos and spoofed GPS settings, pretending to be in your general vicinity but replying in the most obvious copy-paste/ChatGPT style of smalltalk that eventually leads to asking for your PayPal details or offering to share cryptocurrency “secrets” that most adults will see through right away, but it must be paying off because it’s become an everyday thing, not to mention seeing multiple accounts with the same photos or even using the same script in conversation (like asking you a big favor, to please pick up some gift cards that dudener says he’s going to give his nephew to get him out of the house long enough for you to be invited over. I recently had that tired old routine from two different accounts, 2 days in a row. Despite reporting obvious scammers at a growing rate, I see no indication that things are being done to keep these career thieves off the platform. It must be working for them. Growlr is overdue to either evolve or die. While it’s mostly just an annoyance for those who can spot scammers easily, the environment on this app is getting increasingly scammy and swampy. But, hey, you might strike up a long distance friendship with a scammer in Nigeria or Calcutta!

The app developers seem more interested in adding random features into of fixing long-standing bugs in the app. If you receive a notification of a message, and use that notification to open the message, the message will be marked as read, but the notification counter in the app icon will remain. Many messages don’t get delivered, and there’s no way of knowing that. The app is littered with people saying that they lost all messages by some bug.

Always a bot message right when you log in. Fake profiles, >500 km (>310 miles), asking for email/phone number/gift cards are more prevalent nowadays. Good, in the sense that the app has gotten popular enough for scammers to target its users. But also a reason why the app is annoying now.

Like it so far beards are awesome! bears e so Hot!!!

99/100 of people who will approach you use a filter or are 1000 of miles away trying to scam you Not sure real people even use this anymore

Scammers/bot accounts. I hope they figure out a way to stop them. If it’s not themselves doing it to scam their customers…very negative app!!