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Press release · Zurich, 12 October 2026
Rooted in a 24-year legacy with zero ads, human verification and zero paid marketing, DudesChat arrives on Android today and offers an antidote to bot-infested dating platforms.
ZURICH, 12 October 2026. As mainstream gay apps draw growing fatigue over paywalls, algorithms and bot profiles, DudesChat arrives on Google Play today, completing a launch that began on the web on 30 July and reached the App Store on 30 September. DudesChat is a social and chat app for gay, bi and curious men: privacy-focused, verified by principle, and built around real community rather than engagement metrics.
Created by the team behind DudesNude, a community platform founded in 2002, seven years before Grindr existed, DudesChat is the new extension of that independent social network, which has sustained a thriving member base for 24 years.
The story behind it is personal. DudesNude's founder sold the platform in 2019. The buyer died a year later, at the height of the pandemic, and his husband, Claudio, took over a crumbling business and a community of gay men who had been meeting there for two decades. Six years on, DudesNude is growing again: 2,500 new members and more than a million messages every month.
Unlike competitors built on algorithmic match gates and venture-capital growth targets, DudesChat runs on the principles of the early web: no ads, no data sale, no investors, and a real human behind every profile.
"We don't sell attention or data, and there is no AI pretending to be a person," says Claudio, owner of Theme Park AG, which operates DudesChat and DudesNude. "People have found their best friends here, and a few found the love of their life, among them Fire Island photographer Tom Bianchi, who told El País he met his husband on DudesNude. Twenty-four years in, our business model is still community."
Founded in 2002, DudesNude is one of the internet's longest-running independent platforms for gay men, rebuilt from the ground up in 2025 and 2026. Theme Park AG in Zurich operates DudesNude and DudesChat under a privacy-first model funded by members through optional subscriptions rather than advertising. DudesChat is free to use; an optional Supporter subscription unlocks extras.
Learn more, try the app or download it for iPhone and Android at dudes.chat.
Claudio Kamm, Owner, Theme Park AG · ck@themepark.com · dudes.chat
Press kit, logos and boilerplate: dudes.chat/press. Tom Bianchi in El País, 29 June 2024: the interview (Spanish).
Published: 2026‑10‑12