The Tea app wasn’t designed to go down easy. Marketed as a dating safety platform, Tea promises women the power to “fact-check” men before swiping right, whether for narcissism, cheating, or far worse. But after surviving a brutal data breach, trolling campaigns, and criticism that it incites petty revenge, the app is still standing. And maybe that’s because it was born from something no amount of backlash can erase: necessity.
Tea launched quietly in 2023, founded by Sean Cook, a former product manager who watched his mother
. Built for women, verified by selfie, and now boasting over two million users, the app functions like a giant group chat crossed with a Yelp page for men in the dating pool. Search by name or photo, see if anyone’s posted about a guy, and if you’ve got something to add, good or bad, swipe right and spill.
Users leave “green flags” for the respectful ones, and “red flags” for those accused of ghosting, lying, catfishing, or in many cases, serious harm: emotional, physical, sexual — even offenses involving minors. Some women post profiles asking, “Anyone got tea on this man?” before agreeing to a date. The entertainment value is undeniable, but so is the ethical unease.
Critics say Tea invites defamation, that innocent men can be smeared with no recourse. That anonymous reports shouldn’t count as justice. But the act of cross-checking men? That’s older than the Internet. Before Tea, there were Facebook groups like Are We Dating the Same Guy?, or mid-2000s sites like Don’t Date Him Girl. And before all that, there was the classic “Excuse me, sis, can I talk to you for a minute?” whispered warning — an essential part of dating while female.
And here’s why it matters: According to the CDC, nearly 1 in 2 women in the U.S. have experienced physical violence, sexual violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. More than half of all female homicide victims are killed by a current or former male partner. Most abusers aren’t held accountable. Victims often don’t press charges or later have the charges dropped. In that void, rogue, user-generated intel may be the only early warning system women can trust.
But Tea’s rise came with consequences. In July 2025, trolls on 4chan targeted the app, leaking over 70,000 images, including selfies and driver’s licenses, and later, 1.1 million private messages. The harassment was swift and vicious. But ironically, it proved Tea’s point. The very backlash women were trying to protect themselves from became the reaction to their protection.
Despite these violations, Tea remains. It paused messaging, upgraded security, and continued its core offerings: background checks, reverse image searches, criminal record lookups, and a searchable tea feed. Membership is $14.99 per month, 10% of which is donated to organizations like the National Domestic Violence Hotline and RAINN.
It’s not perfect. It’s messy, risky, and sometimes gossipy. But so is the dating world it’s trying to protect women from. And while the app continues to face lawsuits and skepticism, its popularity makes one thing clear: when the system doesn’t protect you, you build your own, whether the world likes how that looks or not.
Tea isn’t the solution to partner violence. But it is a mirror, and what it reflects is hard to ignore.
