It’s been over six years since we launched Grommr and in that time, we’ve been asked a lot of questions. We’ve answered a lot of them in the global newsfeed and as replies to individual messages, but we thought it might be nice to pull back the curtain a little and publish some of the ones we get asked most often (plus a few we’ve seen folks asking in the newsfeed) for everyone to see.
Is it “groh-mur” or “grah-mur”?
It’s “grah-mur”. Most folks seem to get that, but we realize it can be confusing since it’s not actually a real word. The name itself is a mashup of the words “growth” and “community”, so the vowel sound is the same as the “ah” sound in “community” (but it’s doubly confusing since there’s a hard “o” sound in “growth… basically we’re just the worst).
Grommr is run by a company called Grokio LLC, in close partnership with a developer. Grokio LLC is made up of two people, Jed (SFBaydude02) and Trey (TreyBien). Our developer partner, Yan (Roundgut77), has created everything you’ve ever seen on the website and app, from the ground up. All three of us are Grommr members and have been part of this community for… well, a very long time.
We currently have six part-time admins, spread across time zones on two continents.
Our admins are regular members who’ve been trained in our policies and can remove and ban problem members. They work specific blocks of time to ensure that no member has to wait more than 24 hours for a reply and that most often replies come within a few hours. They also review and approve every single photo that gets uploaded to Grommr.
All our admins are part-time contractors--some are students, some have other part time jobs and one even works a 9-5. One of them is actually a lovely female feeder, with impeccable taste in fat men.
If you’ve filed a support request or report with us anytime in the past three years, you’ve likely e-mailed with one of our admins (unless it was a more complicated issue that was escalated to Jed or Trey). They’re super nice folks and they work hard to keep Grommr and our other networks safe, resolve conflicts and funnel feed ice cream.
That was a joke. Sometimes we make jokes. Sometimes, we funnel feed ice cream.
How much admin work is there?
Hooo boy! In the last year, we received over 25,000 support requests (which we call tickets). That’s an average of 68 tickets per day.
Some are easy things, like someone asking how to do something on Grommr or reporting an obvious troll. Most require a bit of back and forth and critical thinking--say, investigating whether someone was harassed, whether someone is underage, or whether a certain profile is fake. And some require a LOT of time and thought--for instance investigating a potential crime; dealing with a sensitive situation like sexual harassment or helping a member with a complex technical problem. Most of the latter group (the really complicated ones) get escalated to us.
And that’s not including ongoing active projects, like scammer patrol, newsfeed monitoring, social media management and events coordination. We’re a busy little family.
What’s the hardest issue to deal with?
Our hate speech policies are probably the most complex--not just because there’s so much gray area, but because it’s a sensitive topic and we don’t want to do anyone a disservice. Also, every incident is different from the one before it. When someone violates our hate speech policy and it appears to be out of ignorance (as opposed to intentionally causing harm), we try to educate them and take lighter action. However when their violation is clearly committed in malice, we take firmer action.
Finding that balance between fostering free and open speech while also protecting vulnerable people is hard.
What’s the weirdest issue you’ve ever dealt with?
Weird is obviously relative, but one of our favorites is when an obvious scammer from West Africa e-mails us to ask why their “totally legitimate” account was just removed. It’s just cute to imagine them being genuinely upset that we stopped them from scamming innocent people.
Also, we once had a member ask us to block his IP because he felt he was addicted to Grommr and wanted help NOT logging in. We obliged, but thought it was definitely odd.
Who was lovefromrussia and how did you find him?
He turned out to be a 17-year-old kid in Croatia. We were able to track down his parents’ information thanks to a lot of time on Google and ultimately got his mom to convince him to stop trolling our community. A mother’s love!
Have you ever had to notify the police?
Yes. Far too many times. Several for potentially imminent suicide attempts. Several because we thought a member of ours posed a threat to someone. And once to help police find an at-risk runaway.
Do you treat paying members differently?
Nope. Our admins are under instruction to ignore whether a member is paying or not when deciding whether or not to take action. We’ve removed dozens of premium members over the years for violating the same rules that non-paying members do.
How often do you have to permanently remove Grommr members?
Too often. On average, we’d say we probably remove about five Grommr members per day--most of them being scammers, trolls or other unsavory types, but usually at least one who’s an otherwise legitimate member of the community who broke our rules one too many times. We don’t relish doing it, but the alternative is worse, so we keep on keepin’ on.
Why did you remove my profile?
Because you violated our rules one too many times.
Why did you remove my friend’s profile?
Because they violated our rules one too many times.
Why did you remove that cute guy’s profile?
Because he was a scammer from Ghana.
How do you decide which features to develop next?
Excellent question! We look at three main criteria: The impact on members (both how many will be affected and how popular the idea is in the feedback forum); the cost/work involved; and where it fits into our vision for the platform.
Features/fixes that can positively impact a lot of members at low cost/workload and fit our vision are typically highest priorities. Sometimes a feature might be super impactful and popular, but a lot of work--such as, say, re-developing our mobile app--and we have to really triage which of those makes the cut, because of how much time and energy they take. Things that only impact a small number of members and require a large amount of work usually get lower priority.
What new features have you added in the past?
Since Grommr launched six years ago, we’ve introduced the events listings; the local newsfeed; weight progress charts; embedded videos; the ability to send private photos, to edit posts, and to mute notifications on a post; the ‘my type’ filter; cleaner, simplified notifications; and a mobile-optimized website followed by an entire app for iOS and Android, just to name a few.
We’ve also added a lot of back-end tools that help our admin team keep Grommr safe and functioning--such as comprehensive block logs; the ability to temporarily ban members; Admin and Early Responder profile types; anti-DDoS protection; a system for reporting content and members that is fully integrated into an e-mail based ticketing system; e-mail verification; group messaging to promote GrommOffs; and several tools that help prevent trolls and scammers from joining.
If you’d like to see a list of just a few of the things we’ve updated or added since Grommr launched, you can check out the “completed” section of the feedback forum.
What’s being developed now?
Oh this is exciting! We’ve spent the last few months preparing to completely re-build our app from the ground up. The end result will be a native-experience app with all the important features folks have become accustomed to on the website. It’ll be faster, sleeker and more user friendly than the current app.
We started development work on the app last month and we’re hoping to be able to release it by the middle of 2018. That’s our main development focus at the moment.
How do you decide whether to work on development or community stuff?
This one’s an easy one. There’s three of us who run Grommr: One of us is an experienced developer with ninja-like tech skills, the other two of us are… not. So we don’t really need to decide. Yan focuses on optimizing and developing our platform and Trey and Jed focus on everything else: community moderation; payment processing and finances; events; and community initiatives like the Gainer History Project, the Gainer Community Report and Carbs Amass Huge Manatees.
Why did you make Carbs Amass Huge Manatees?
Actually the idea came up while a group of gainers were playing card games and we started talking about potential gainer themed ones--say, turning Secret Hitler into Secret Feeder. The idea of a Cards Against Humanity type game seemed really appealing, so we started sourcing ideas from other gainerfolk and assembling a mix of cards--some silly, some relatable, some totally absurd.
We debuted the game at a Chicago GrommOff that was themed around board games and it was a huge hit, so we decided to flesh it out even more, make it official, give it a logo and release it for everyone to play.
It’s all very dumb, in the best possible way. And you can play it here.
How long did the Gainer History Project take to make?
Too long. Seriously, that thing was hundreds of hours of work. So if you haven’t explored it, please, for the love of God, check it out! (there’s a link in the left nav bar on the website.)
What if I don’t care about gainer history?
Well it’s got oodles of pics of hot fat guys and some Warren Davis artwork that’s never been posted anywhere else on online. But we won’t tell you where to find them, so you’ll just have to read the whole thing.
What’s the deal with GrommOffs?
GrommOffs started off as bar meetups that we used to organize long before the idea of Grommr ever came around. We used Beefyfrat back then (the olden days!) and would set up meetups in New York or Washington to gather local gainerfolk to socialize.
Once Grommr launched, we decided to make these meetups an official thing, with ground rules and vetted organizers, that could happen anywhere in the world. The dream was always to have local organizers step up to organize them, which has happened in many places--but certainly not as many as we’d like (Hint hint).
Whenever one of us happens to be traveling somewhere, we try to host a GrommOff because it’s a good way to hear from Grommr members outside our normal circles, to source potential future organizers and also just have fun.
Why aren’t there any GrommOffs near me?
GrommOffs happen when organizers make them happen. If you’d like to see one near you and you’re a reasonably friendly human, you should consider becoming a GrommOff organizer. You’ll be vetted by our GrommOff coordinator, Justin (wave hello, Justin!) and once approved, you’ll be able to create events in our event listing.
All we require of GrommOff organizers is that you set events that are open to all (and conscientious of things like space and price), that you enforce the basic ground rules (no sexual harassment, no racism, etc.), and that you show up to the event and help people feel welcome. It’s not super hard, but it does require a dose of courage (and a bit of coordination).
If you’d like to become an organizer, check out the Guide to GrommOffs for all the details. If you think you’re ready to be vetted, just send a message to the GrommOff account and Justin will get you started!
Why did you start EuroGrom?
We thought European gainers deserved to have a big event like BRW and Expansion in the U.S. It was a bit of a risk the first time we did it in 2014, but we got a huge crowd and decided to do it again in 2016. It doesn’t make any money, but it breaks even and is a fun time, so we think it’s a win-win.
Are you gonna do anything like EuroGrom in the U.S.?
We hadn’t planned to before, since BRW and Expansion seemed like enough big events for our small community and we wouldn’t wanna cannibalize them. But since Expansion ended, we’ve been exploring a potential U.S. event to take its place. We can’t confirm anything yet, but stay tuned for more on that.
What happened to Gainrtube?
Your guess is as good as ours! The guy who ran it remains anonymous to this day and because he used bitcoin, there’s no “paper trail”. Gainer mysteries!
What happened to the Grommr lip dub?
It was stolen by Gainrtube... Just kidding, we had to take it down because we’d tried to host it from within Grommr and it was causing problems. We don’t want to just re-post it somewhere too public or easily accessible, so we’re currently looking at options to re-post it and we’ll let folks know when it’s back up in a safe place.
Does Grokio have an office?
Sadly no. We all work from home, in New York, Chicago and Montreal (plus our admins who live in Ontario, California, North Carolina and the tiny nation of Luxembourg).
Does Grokio have a blimp?
Yeah. We definitely have one of those.
Where would you like to see the gainer community in another six years?
Our goal for the community hasn’t changed since we launched--we still wanna see more in-person interaction, more events and more robust gainer communities, everywhere.
Seven years ago, the only time you could get a large group of gainerfolk together was once a year at Expansion. If you missed it, you missed your shot for the year. Now there are thriving communities in big cities like New York, Chicago, Seattle, LA, Toronto, and London, with regular meetups and large, connected friend groups. We’d love to see that list continue to expand--for gainerfolk in smaller cities and non-English-speaking countries to connect more offline and build their communities.
It probably seems counterintuitive for guys running a website and app to want people to connect offline, but we see it as a good thing. The internet is a wonderful gift, but it’s no substitute for real world interaction.
What can I do if I have a question?
If you have a question that wasn’t answered here, we’d be happy to weigh in. You can send an email to [email protected]; click the “Support” link on the website; or go to “Help & Support” in the app and then tap “Contact Us.”
