Browsing the Internet as a young policeman in China, Ma Baoli (馬保力) recalls the sheer volume of Web pages telling him he was a pervert, diseased and in need of treatment — simply because he was gay.
“I felt extremely lonely after I became aware of my sexual orientation,” said Ma, at the time a newly minted officer in a small coastal city.
Two decades later, the softly spoken 43-year-old now helms Blued, one of the world’s largest dating platforms for gay men.
Photo: AFP
The app went public in July last year with a US$85 million debut on the NASDAQ, a remarkable tech success story from a country that classified homosexuality as a mental illness as recently as 2001.
Parent company Blue City’s sunlit Beijing campus teems with young and casually dressed programmers who hold meetings in rooms named after Oscar Wilde and other prominent LGBTQ figures from around the world.
The office boasts rainbow unicorn mascots, gender-neutral toilets and photographs of Ma’s meetings with dignitaries, including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強).
Ma’s journey to the apex of China’s tech industry began in the early 2000s when he began publishing Danlan.org, a blog about his life as a gay man.
There were few places in China at the time for gay men to socialize, Ma said, adding that “people would write on the walls of public toilets, saying meet here at this and that time.”
“Everyone was scared of being found out by others,” he said.
Ma’s blog gradually expanded into an influential online forum for LGBTQ people in China to share lifestyle articles, health advice and short stories.
“I thought I could build a Web site, to tell gay people like me ... you don’t need to feel inferior, you don’t need to be suicidal,” he said.
Increasing local media coverage of the Web site outed Ma to his coworkers and prompted him to leave the police force in 2012.
He launched Blued the same year.
The app today says that it has more than 58 million users in China and other countries, including India, South Korea and Thailand.
It has yet to turn a profit, but company figures show that losses have narrowed since the platform began paid memberships, livestreams and ads in 2016.
Like other dating apps, many Blued users are seeking hookups and casual dates.
However, Ma also keeps a stack of letters on his desk from users who have written to thank him for helping connect them to their long-term partners.
Discussion of LGBT issues remains contentious in China, with activists complaining of tightened restrictions on public discussion in recent years.
However, despite Danlan.org being repeatedly shut down in the first few years of its existence, Blued has largely avoided conflict with authorities. It has opted for a cautious approach in raising mainstream awareness and tolerance of the LGBTQ community.
That includes its efforts to tackle the stigma around HIV that has fueled discrimination against gay men and prevented people from seeking medical care.
Blue City runs an online platform that sells HIV diagnostic kits and brokers consultations with doctors. It also works with local authorities to direct users to free testing centers.
Ma said that he was pleasantly surprised by the response he received after sounding out health officials to cooperate on HIV prevention campaigns.
“They said they had really wanted to reach the gay community, but they didn’t have the channels and didn’t know how to find them,” Ma said.
He believes that his work has helped improve the mainstream perception of LGBTQ people in China, including friends and family who previously shunned him — and he thinks that more positive recognition is on the horizon.
“I think there will eventually be a day when gay marriage is legal in China,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
For more than a century, the fate of the dazzling Darya-e-Noor diamond has been sealed inside a bank vault — a mystery that haunts Khawaja Naim Murad, great-grandson of the last prince, or nawab, of Dhaka. Locked away in 1908, were the family’s heirlooms lost during the violence at the end of British rule in 1947? Did they survive Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 and the string of coups that followed, or are they still safe, dusty, but untouched? Many suspect that the jewels are long gone and officials at the state-run bank hesitate to simply open the vault, fearing that they
RSS