STUDY: Philly on the Fence About Showing Face Pics on Gay Hookup Apps

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Gay hookup app Scruff has launched SCRUFFtistics, their attempt at using user data for gay social research. Their first project is Face Pic Nation, which takes a state-by-state look at the prevalence of users who use face pics when connecting (or networking!) on the app. Their thinking behind the research:

One of biggest questions people ask today is “how is gay acceptance evolving?” We asked ourselves if the prevalence of face pics—a piece of data that we have been collecting since we first launched—showed any kind of regional differences. Our hypothesis was that a higher prevalence of face pics may correspond with greater gay acceptance in an area.

As you can see in the nifty interactive map below, Pennsylvania falls somewhere in the middle, with 50.99 percent. We rank 31 with the rest of the country, with Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Vermont and Minnesota making up the top 5. Sort of fits with their thinking, huh? Look at Mississippi and Georgia down there with some of the lowest scores.

For an even more intimate look into our hookup-app habits, Scruff even broke down the statistics by city. Funny enough, Philly and Pittsburgh rank side by side at 133 and 134, that’s 51.84 and 51.82 percent prevalence, respectively. The only other PA states are Allentown and Erie, which, not surprisingly, rank much lower at 185 and 212.

Thoughts? Does this fit with what you see when using Scruff? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. For more info on the Face Pic Nation project, go here.