'Tea' App for Women Posting Dirt on Ex-Boyfriends Hacked

It was founded in 2023 by Sean Cook, who cites his mother getting catfished online as the motivation for the app. According to a social media post from Tea, the app has about 4 million users.

Critics argue that the app is a tool for digital stalking and defamation, allowing jilted women to anonymously spread misinformation about their former dates, boyfriends and husbands in order to ruin their future relationship chances and avoid legal repercussions. It acts essentially as a Yelp for men in which anyone can claim anything. Men cannot join the app or respond to accusations.

The underlying danger of the app, beyond the potential for slander, is that it is yet another mechanism that pretends as if men are the problem when it comes to modern dating. Women users say they need the app to filter out poor candidates for meet-ups and relationships, but the use of a digital stalking tool would also be treated by any man as an immediate red flag for a woman.

In the past, dating was relegated to limited environments; neighborhoods and towns in which bad behavior would eventually be exposed (if real) by word of mouth, and accusations could be addressed and debunked (if false). With the advent of online dating and social media, the gossip mill has gone global and an average person's reputation can be destroyed on an epic scale. Everyone is in everyone else's business and there is no privacy or escape.

The fact that online stalking by women is treated as acceptable while a similar project by men would be treated as a national emergency clarifies the greater problem at hand. Feminism has led to male demonization and a crippling double standard in social interactions where bad behavior by women is excusable.