#Bristlr: Tinder For Beards Is Here! (But It’s Not What You Think…)

There are so many dating apps nowadays, it’s honestly hard to keep track. After the launch of Tinder in 2012, a new slew of dating apps soon to followed. There’s Raya (Tinder for rich people), Bumble (feminist Tinder), Hinge (Tinder for friends of friends), Mix’d (Tinder for people who have the same taste in music), and the app that really started them all, Grindr (for gay, bisexual and bi-curious men).

One of the most recent, is Bristlr, a.k.a. Tinder for beards. Their tagline is;

“Connecting those with beards to those who want to stroke beards”

Sounds kinda gay, right? Gay men already have that app. It’s called Scruff. But it turns out that Bristlr is being used mostly by WOMEN hoping to meet bearded men –but they estimate that between 2- 4% of users are gay. And some men supposedly use the app simply to meet other men who they can share beard-grooming tips with. (That sounds REALLY gay…)

The idea actually started out as a joke but quickly gained traction in the media, resulting in more than 100,000 registered users in less than four weeks. John Kershaw, a 28-year-old freelance developer in Manchester, England, first built the website for fun after suggesting the idea on Facebook and receiving a positive response from his friends.

“When I posted the question on my Facebook page, my friends said they thought it was a really good idea,” Kershaw says. “So I made this fake landing site where people could sign up to this app that didn’t really exist, just because I was curious to see how far people would go with it. After 100 people signed up in four days, I thought there must be some scope.

It’s lighthearted, you can’t take it too seriously, which I think is really appealing to people. I think it’s the fact that instead of it being this serious business like, ‘Hey, if you click this button, we’re going to do this serious thing,’ it’s more like, ‘Hey, I like your beard.'”

In an attempt to keep things light, the site requires minimal information from users. The app does, however, keep track of users who have beards versus users who love beards—and the current ratio is almost 50:50.

“We don’t track whether people are male or female. Just whether or not they have a beard or they are looking for someone with a beard. We track the important stuff.”

Last Saturday must have been like Christmas on the site. It was World Beard Day.