From 2019’s VSCO to 2022’s BeReal, new forms of social media have been popping up throughout the years. For 2025, the new social media craze has appeared in the form of an app called Tea. However, this app is unlike any past social media we’ve seen before.
While not a dating app, the app is described as an app built for women. The purpose is for women to anonymously share information about men they know or have dated. The goal? To warn others about potentially dangerous men.
The app requires a selfie to verify each user is a woman, then adds them to a waiting list. The waiting list could take anywhere from a couple of hours to days.
Once in the app, people have access to numerous features. According to its website teaforwomen.com, users can “Use Tea to find men with green flags, run background checks, identify potential catfishes, verify he’s not a sex offender, check for a criminal history, etc.” Users can post pictures of men in their area, where others can interact and give a red or green flag. If a flag isn’t enough, the app even has a comment feature to help share potential red flag stories. The purpose is to share any stories that could caution other girls away from them. Sounds great, right?
The app had been presented with good intentions, but it seems like it has lost its purpose. While some women have utilized the app for the right purpose, such as sharing cheating or abuse stories, others have started to use the app as borderline bullying. Since the posts are anonymous, people can say whatever they want about each other and some users have started to spread rumors or bash others on the app. Rumors on the Tea app have become so commonplace that it inspired a TikTok trend; men printing out comments from their posts on the app and debunking the rumors. Girls posting other girls and bashing on them has also started to arise, which completely abandons the purpose of the app altogether.
Men themselves have also slowly found ways to creep onto the platform. From utilizing the app to see what women have said about them to commenting on posts about their friends and hyping them up, they have forced their way in. There have even been developments in men having their own app for women. Such as the app TeaOnHer, which includes the same safety features as Tea but for men.
With all of these issues, the usefulness of the app is being called into question. While some have found it useful, others are questioning its legitimacy thanks to the influx of rumors. To make matters worse, back in July, the app had a major data breach, leaking many women’s information. According to NPR, “Users on the notorious message board 4chan got a hold of users’ sensitive data — including government IDs, which had at one point been used as a verification tool by the app — and leaked it somewhere else online.”
The app has since fixed the data breach, but other issues still exist. While the app has made no statements on whether the rumors are becoming a real issue, they are starting to take a toll on the reputation of Tea.
Will the app’s popularity remain or will the tea eventually dry up, just like all the other dead social media platforms before it?