Goose, a New Gay Dating App, Appears to Be a Psyop
Key takeaways
- The link leads to a login for Goose, a dating and friendship app for gay men with the slogan “for the boys,” which allows users to “meet guys through the life you already have,” according to its website.
- Created by the model-influencer Derek Chadwick, as well as former BeReal growth and community manager David Aliagas, Goose positions itself as a Grindr alternative for gay men who want to build lasting relationships.
- Still, user interest was apparently high enough that when the app launched last Thursday, it rose to #4 in the App Store’s free lifestyle downloads category, and is now ranked 33rd in lifestyle app downloads globally.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photograph: Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story The Instagram Close Friends Story for @miles.sumrall shows an affable-looking guy with curly dark hair and an expertly groomed mustache beaming as he floats on the water. “You’re receiving this because you’re exactly the type of person we’re building this for,” the caption reads, accompanied by a code for an invite to a “members only community.”
The link leads to a login for Goose, a dating and friendship app for gay men with the slogan “for the boys,” which allows users to “meet guys through the life you already have,” according to its website.
The problem is that @miles.sumrall does not appear to be real. Neither does @danielmmulugeta, the cute dark-haired influencer who shared the above caption, with the exact same verbiage, on his Close Friends’ Stories. Both accounts were created in May 2026 and have fewer than 10 posts as well as a high following-to-follower ratio. And both of their Instagram avatars were determined with greater than 90 percent confidence to be AI-generated, according to the AI Image Detector software. A SynthID check on Google Gemini, which can help identify AI-generated images, also found that “most or all of” Miles’ and Daniel’s profile photos were created using Google AI.