Modern dating is a minefield. In recent years, many straight women have sounded the alarm about the terrible behaviour they’ve been subjected to, both online and off: from catfishing, to unsolicited dick pics, to lovebombing, to gaslighting, to ghosting – to, in more extreme instances, abuse.
In light of this, it’s little wonder that there’s a new app promising to help you “make sure your date is safe, not a catfish, and not in a relationship”. Tea Dating Advice (or Tea) is a women-only app which is rapidly gaining popularity among young women in the US (it’s not yet available in the UK or Australia). It’s currently the #1 lifestyle app in the App Store, with nearly 1 million women signing up to this app in the past week alone. On the platform, users are able to anonymously post photos of men they’re dating and ask if other users have any ‘tea’ on them. Users are also able to turn on notification alerts to see if specific names are mentioned on the app.
The premise is similar to those ‘Are We Dating The Same Guy?’ Facebook pages where group members – usually straight women – post ‘reviews’ of men they’ve dated, often alongside screenshots of their social media profiles, or ask if any other members have any dirt to dish about them. “Essentially, they’re the [modern] equivalent of whisper networks,” surmised writer Chiara Wilkinson in a 2023 Dazed article. Or, as James Greig put it in a 2024 article about surveillance culture, “it’s digital vigilantism; the TikTok equivalent of a citizen’s arrest.”
For some, the app is a vital resource – a way to alert other women to the predators and abusers lurking undetected in the dating pool. “Unlike anything else out there, this app is designed with women’s safety, awareness, and empowerment as its top priority,” reads one review on the App Store. “It goes beyond basic dating protection and truly provides a layer of defense against liars, cheaters, scammers, and even predators.” Another is glad to have a means of warning other women about her abusive ex. “He’s attractive, smart and charming, you’d never know it […] for so long I was hoping for a way to warn other women of him.”
But others are sceptical. A one-star review claims that their friend was unfairly slated on the app by one woman after he decided not to pursue things romantically with her. As a result of this, the review reads, “my friend has been turned down on several dates. He has gone into depression and has decided to avoid the dating scene.” Another review describes the app as “a place for jealous ex-girlfriends to post bad things”. (Tea’s support team stress that they “have a zero tolerance policy for defamatory content” on the app and ask anyone on the receiving end of this to get in touch.)
It’s easy to sympathise with the women who see the platform as a useful directory of dangerous men. In the US, over 1 in 3 women (35.6 per cent) in the US have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime – but only around half of all domestic violence incidents are reported to law enforcement, largely owing to fear, shame, and a lack of faith in the police. With this in mind, it’s little wonder that women are drawn to more ‘alternative’ ways of seeking justice.
But it’s also clear how an app like Tea could be abused. It’s arguably inherently unethical to effectively doxx someone and share private information about them without their consent; although some might argue that abusers forfeit their right to privacy, what about the men posted on there who aren’t abusers? Is having your personal information published online a suitable ‘punishment’ for, say, ghosting someone after one date? Is it really healthy or helpful for us to surveil one another like this? It’s possible Tea users could also find themselves in legal trouble if they publish defamatory posts or use the platform to harass men.
It remains to be seen whether Tea will take off as a new platform, spectacularly flop, or get deleted off the App Store as a result of violating men’s privacy. But one thing is clear: the rapid rise of an app like this serves to demonstrate just how toxic and embittered the modern heterosexual dating scene has become.
