On a sweat-soaked New York afternoon over Pride Weekend, a short line formed outside a dark bar on the Lower East Side. After checking customers’ IDs, a boyish-looking bouncer at the front door asked if they’d downloaded the app they needed to get in: “Do you have Motto?”
I pulled up the app, its home screen affixed with the photo of an anonymous man—handsome, smiling, hairy and shirtless—and a clock that ticked down the time until a new batch of guys’ profiles would be available to browse. Motto was my ticket to the party, filled with gay men in tank tops and dad caps, bartenders serving $14 High Noons, and goodie bags filled with Advil and eye masks.
