The Tea App: Why Does the Women-Only Platform Have Toxic Men So Mad?

So, this is why we choose the bear.

The Tea app, a women-only dating platform that helps singles stay safe while navigating the world of heterosexual love, was hacked last week after it was targeted on misogynistic platforms.

The app, which actually had been in operation for two years before its viral moment last week, says on its website that it was founded with the belief that women “should never have to compromise their safety while dating.” But now, the app says, 72,000 images of its users have been stolen from its servers.

Here’s everything you need to know, in the latest edition of TL;DR.

Give me the TL;DR.

A women-only dating-safety app was hacked after it went viral on social media last week and caused a misogynistic meltdown on the internet.

Wait, I need more. What’s the background here?

Tea was founded by tech entrepreneur Sean Cook (yes, a man!) in 2023. According to the app’s website, Cook had the idea for the app after watching his mom struggle with online dating, experiencing both catfishing from men and unwittingly chatting with others who had criminal records.

“My mom’s challenges with online dating were upsetting—and eye-opening. However, when I brought it up with my friends, I learned it wasn’t just my mom who was going through this; every woman I spoke to had a similar story,” Cook told a startup news website earlier this year. “The common thread was clear: dating apps weren’t built with women’s safety or emotional well-being in mind.”

Cook partnered with an influencer and podcaster named Daniella Szetela, who later became its head of socials, to design and launch the platform. On Tea, women can vet potential suitors using technology like reverse-image searching, entering in their phone number to check for “possible marriages,” and background checks.

The app also hosts a “group chat,” where women can share bad dating experiences with certain men and rely on one another for support. In this way, the app is a Silicon Valley–fied version of the “Are we dating the same guy?” Facebook groups, which had proliferated organically over the past few years to serve essentially the same purpose.

Although the app has been around for a while, it went suddenly viral last week, rocketing up to the top of the US app store and sparking a whole lot of discourse.

Let me guess—some men online got mad.

Yep! Apparently the idea of being rightfully called out for treating women badly in a safe space was enough to throw some into a rage.

Men urged others to report the app on subreddits for things like “men’s rights” and “unpopular opinions,” assuming that most of the accounts on the app were lies and blaming “ugly women” for spreading them. Classy!

There were also a lot of questions about how legal posting on the app is, which CNN helpfully broke down and concluded: You’re probably safe.

“Some of the men outed on the app certainly have a basis to feel aggrieved,” they concluded. “But for the most part, if they escalate to filing legal challenges, they will likely find themselves crying alone over spilled tea.”

Who hacked the app?

Unclear as of now. On Friday, the app posted to its website that the data breach led to “72,000 images” of its users being compromised, including about 13,000 selfies. The company explained that the database that was hacked contained images used to verify users’ profiles prior to February 2024, so anyone who signed up after that date isn’t affected.