The Daily Beast Outs Several Closeted Athletes

[Princess Die 1,864]

On Thursday morning, the Daily Beastpublished an exceedingly gross and bizarre article by a straight, married male writer who lured in gay Olympians through hookup apps for no particular purpose. The entire piece is an astoundingly creepy exercise in Grindr-baiting, which involves a journalistaccessing Grindr in an unlikely settingand … seeing what happens. But the Daily Beast piece, penned by Nico Hines, is a uniquely disgusting and irresponsible entry into the tired genre. Hines entices his (often closeted) subjects under false pretenses; effectively outs several closeted athletes who live in repressive countries; then writes about the whole thing in a tone of mocking yet lurid condescension. By 10:30 a.m. ET, theDaily Beast had, in response to criticism, edited out the most identifying details about closeted athletes—but that’s too little, too late.

Hines begins by explaining that his entire assignment consisted of walking around the Olympic Village while using several hookup apps, hoping to learn whether “an Average Joe” can “join the bacchanalia.” He quickly abandons apps like Tinder, which are mostly used by straight people, for Grindr, which is for gay men: “No prizes for guessing that Grindr proved more of an instant hookup success than Bumble or Tinder,” he writes. Presumably, Hines awards “no prizes” because he believes gays are more promiscuous than straight people—a theme to which Hines often returns throughout his vile piece.

Because Hines is not gay, you might find his use of Grindr a bit dishonest. But not to worry: “For the record,” Hines writes, “I didn’t lie to anyone or pretend to be someone I wasn’t—unless you count being on Grindr in the first place—since I’m straight, with a wife and child.” This sentence reflects a stunning amount of ignorance, because, in Hines’ situation,of course being on Grindr in the first place is a lie. Grindr is an app for men who wish to hook up with other men. That is its purpose! To be on Grindr when you do not have that goal, and when you could not possibly have that goal because you are straight, is itself a mendacious deception.

This misrepresentation might be excusable had Hines noted in his profile that he was a journalist on assignment. But naturally, he did not. Instead, he “confessed to being a journalist as soon as anyone asked who I was.” As soon as anyone asked who he was? Who asks that on Grindr? At the Olympics? In the Olympic Village? Hines seems to expect his marks to immediately divine that he is a straight journalist, and if they don’t, too bad for them. He also believes his targets have a fair chance of catching wise because he “used my own picture.” (“[J]ust of my face…” he adds coyly.)

Why didn’t they point out Dustin Lance Black, diver Tom Daley’s Oscar-winning fiancé?
With his dubious premise established, Hines proceeds to out athlete after athlete, providing enough information about each Olympian he encounters for anyone with basic Google skills to uncover their identities. (After several minutes of Googling, I surmised the identities of five of the gay athletes Hines described.) I’m not going to repeat his descriptions, because—as Hines himself acknowledges!—some of them live in “notoriously homophobic” countries and remain closeted at home. Yes, the Daily Beast updated the article a few hours after publication to remove personally identifiable information (while insisting that outing gay athletes was “never our reporter’s intention.”) But really: Anyone who has heard of Grindr has also heard of the Wayback Machine. Nothing on the internet can be reliably deleted.

Shortly after Hines’ article published, openly gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy tweeted that the author “basically just outed a bunch of athletes in his quest to write a shitty [Daily Beast] article where he admitted to entrapment.” That is correct, but it’s worth exploring why Hines embarked upon this weird, sleazy quest in the first place. I count two reasons. The first is that Hines simply enjoys tittering with condescension at all the gay athletes who take the bait and engage with him—a straight dude, as Hines emphatically reminds us. Why else zero in on Grindr? The second reason is more repulsive: Hines appears to take pleasure in luring in these Olympians then outing them to all the world.

But the offensive purpose of Hines’ article is really the least of its problems. Far worse is the actual damage it will likely cause to real, live human beings—inevitable consequences that Hines blithely ignored. Several athletes who are closeted at home (and possibly to their own teammates) will wake up on Thursday morning to the news that theDaily Beast has outed them. Their teammates could ostracize and alienate them; their families could disown them; their countries could imprison them. And for what? A homophobic article about how a straight guy conned gay Olympians from anti-gay countries into hitting on him through Grindr? Hines’ article is a dangerous disaster, a wildly unethical train wreck that should be taken down immediately for the sake of its duped subjects. Hines may view his Grindr-baiting as all fun and games. For the victims of his unprincipled journalism, however, his nasty little piece has the power to ruin lives.

Source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/08/11/the_daily_beast_s_olympics_grindr_stunt_is_dangerous_and_unethical.html

This is **** people get their ass beat over. I really hope someone sets up a bomb in his desk or something. 

[Goosey 3,017]

A straight journalist from The Daily Beast has landed in hot water after using Grindr to write a piece on gay hook-up sex among Olympians in which he provided telling details about the athletes he chatted with, effectively outing them. Some of those athletes come from countries that are notoriously anti-gay.

The journalist in question, Nico Hines (right), perused Bumble, Grindr, Jack’d and Tinder while in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics. While Hines says he did not set out to write specifically about gay athletes, his piece focused almost entirely on them. Hines provided enough details about certain athletes he interacted with to be able to identify them.

http://www.towleroad.com/2016/08/grindr-olympics/

 

[Nino 12]

He'll never get a job in that industry ever again. This is the type of stuff that follows you your whole career.

[ryanripley 86,575]

lets hope they crash and burn just like gawker did

[Jinzo 9,639]

what an asshole 

[Goosey 3,017]

6 minutes ago, Princess Die said:

I really hope someone sets up a bomb in his desk or something. 

Too far.

Hines didn't even name anyone. He said vague things like "a tall black guy" or "one of the world's top equestrians". Yeah, you might make a guess, but he gave no real conclusive identifiers.

[PaperIz 7,354]

This is awful  I hope this man is fired and like sued or something 

[Guest]

What he doesn't seem to understand is that some of these athletes cannot come out in their home countries because of deadly laws and/or cultures. He should be charged for potentially destroying lives. 

[BLACKOUTbritney 22,369]

This is terrible

Nothing worse than being outed when you're not ready, let alone not being ready and being in the public eye 

[KyliesChild 16,907]

That's disgusting, it's hard not to be able to be yourself and it is even harder to be outed so that everyone across the world knows although it's not an appropriate time yet. 

[kabirartfling 9,063]

Wtf? LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE YOU PUBLICITY ***** ....seriously this sounds worst than killing gay people!

[weed 79,308]

This is really terrible 

I hope he gets fired and even fined

[Princess Die 1,864]

2 minutes ago, Goosey said:

Too far.

Hines didn't even name anyone. He said vague things like "a tall black guy" or "one of the world's top equestrians". Yeah, you might make a guess, but he gave no real conclusive identifiers.

Shut up. It was malicious from the start. I'm not apologizing for ****.

[Goosey 3,017]

Just now, Princess Die said:

Shut up. It was malicious from the start. I'm not apologizing for ****.

"Death is taken very seriously on the forum"  if it's not edited quick I expect you'll have a pop-up telling you to "acknowledge" something.

[Princess Die 1,864]

1 minute ago, Goosey said:

"Death is taken very seriously on the forum"  if it's not edited quick I expect you'll have a pop-up telling you to "acknowledge" something.

Cool. I have wp's to spare.