March 20, 2023

by Bill Berkowitz

Picture it: You’re a youngish white dude sitting alone in your mom’s basement. You just peeled off your Proud Boys outfit and took off your QAnon pin. You’re surrounded by guns, gear, and camo. Your MAGA hat — a little sour from years of unwashed wear — is resting on the mattress on your bed. Your walls are covered with Trump “Stop the Steal” posters and “Hang Mike Pence” placards. Leaflets from the January 6 riot at the Capitol are laid out on your couch. You’re unvaccinated and you’ve been tweeting diatribes against “woke” culture, drag queens, and Critical Race Theory.

You’ve got everything you ever wanted or needed — except for one thing… You can’t get a date!

Over the years, conservatives have set up a number of dating sites. In the past year, former Trump staffers John McEntee, who was a personal aide to former President Trump and then director of the White House presidential personnel office, and Daniel Huff, a Trump appointee in the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a White House adviser, launched “The Right Stuff,” a conservative dating app. In October of last year, The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi reported: “In the past few years, we’ve seen services such as Righter, Patrio, Dating Freedom Lovers, Awake Dating, Donald Daters, Conservatives Only, Trump Singles, and Trump Dating promise to help right-wingers find love.”

Until now, however, none have been totally dedicated to the conspiracy crowd. By joining up, conspiracy theorists may find a significant other who hasn’t been vaccinated and revels in QAnon conspiracies. According to Vice’s Tim Hume, “The latest, schwurbeltreff.de — whose name references a disparaging German word for conspiratorial gibberish — was launched last month in Germany, and claims to have gained 1,500 users in its first three weeks.”

Hume reported that users of the site must believe many of the conspiracy theories that have circulated within right wing extremist circled for decades: Alongside the standard dating profile bio questions around height, hobbies, and favourite movies, new users of the site are asked to list which conspiracy theories they consider to be real – such as coronavirus, QAnon, New World Order, or prepper ideology – and to disclose the number of coronavirus vaccines they’ve taken. New users are also asked to describe where they get their information about current events, and to explain how they think the world will change in the next 20 years.

The site was launched by Michael Bründel, a prominent figure in Germany’s conspiracy theorist anti-lockdown scene. “The site’s homepage shows Bründel wearing a tinfoil hat connected through a web of electrical sparks to a tinfoil hat-wearing woman, whose laptop is decorated with stickers featuring a UFO, a call to ‘Free Julian Assange,’ and a photo of a plane about to crash into the World Trade Centre.”

Bründel said that the pandemic split society “into two camps: those who basically trust the mainstream media and politicians, and those who use alternative media and see and evaluate many things very differently. The different opinions on corona have broken many old friendships and relationships, but often also created new ones.”

And for those still in need, they might want to check out a list prepared by DatingAdvice.com: the “13 Best Free Conservative Dating Sites” in 2023.

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