Did Grindr send a racist tweet during last night’s vice presidential debate?

There was some serious drama on Grindr’s Twitter page last night.

The dating app decided to let gay comedian Guy Branum take over its account during last night’s vice presidential debate, tweeting out GIFs, memes, and other snarky commentary during the 90 minute snooze fest, er, presentation.

The exercise started out innocently enough, with Branum making middle school jabs at both candidates, first by comparing Pence to “a cartoon turtle” and then by saying Tim Kaine is “1/4 bobblehead on his mother’s side.”

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And then came this tweet:

https://twitter.com/Grindr/status/783482775756083200

But not everybody found the joke funny. Or even kinda funny.

After it became clear the tweet had hit a nerve, Grindr immediately went into damage control. The very next tweet was a disclaimer from Branum that sounded an awful lot like it was written for him by the app’s PR team:

That was followed by another tweet a short while later:

He could have left it at that. But instead, Brenum decided to dig himself into an even deeper hole by arguing with people.

Then he took to his own Twitter account to double down on his original statement that massive deportation would be an absolute tragedy for horny gay men:

So what’s the takeaway from all this… aside from yet another reason why hookup apps and late night comedian’s might want to refrain from trying to make serious political commentary?

Mathew Rodriguez at Mic.com says that, in addition to ignoring the fact that many of the LGBTQ people who would be deported under a Trump/Pence administration would be sent back to countries that are hostile towards gay people, it highlights the ongoing issue of white privilege within the gay community:

Because white gay men are still afforded a disproportionate amount of power and representation in the gay community, a conversation about immigration became a conversation about white access to black and brown bodies. The funny thing is, this still centers the idea that white people should have access to any body they want.

What do you think? Were the tweets by Branum sent from Grindr’s Twitter account offensive? Or are people taking what was meant to be a flippant remark too seriously?