Tea Dating Advice, informally known as the Tea app, took campus by storm last fall and sparked major controversy. While it was released in 2023, the Tea Dating Advice app first gained widespread popularity in July 2025.

Advertising itself as providing “dating safety tools that protect women,” the app allows women to anonymously post photos of men that include the man’s first name, age, location and an optional caption. Other users can then leave red or green flags on the man’s profile while sharing past experiences or gossip about him.

“Being able to see someone on there who I had a terrible experience with, and who other people also had bad experiences with, helped me come to terms with aspects of the relationship I had ignored and helped me realize that it wasn’t my fault that this person had treated me badly, that this behavior was habitual for him,” wrote an anonymous Binghamton University student in a statement to Pipe Dream.

The app is intended for women only, with an intense vetting process occurring before a potential user can create an account.

At the height of its popularity, the app became the No. 1 free app in the Apple App Store that July, quickly amassing four million users and forcing the app to create a waitlist for prospective users that took days to get off.

“Tea — the only app that gives women top tier dating safety tools,” said a July Instagram post by Tea. “Dating safely must be prioritized in 2025. Your safety is EVERYTHING, girl.”

The Tea App has invited some controversy among students, with some describing their experience being posted on the app as “degrading” and “dehumanizing,” as private pictures and information had been posted without their consent or knowledge.

“It’s a forum for girls to allow themselves to dehumanize men with no repercussions,” an anonymous BU student wrote in a statement to Pipe Dream. “They have the power to post any picture of any student and say any and all horrible accusations and vile comments about appearance.”

The student told Pipe Dream he believes he was posted by someone who wanted to “hear more” about other girls’ opinions of him and investigate allegations they had heard.

Founder Sean Cook launched the app after witnessing his mother’s experience with online dating, where she was catfished and unknowingly engaging with men who had criminal history.

According to a Jan. 13 Instagram post, the Tea app has helped 73 percent of users find information that has helped them “date safer.”

“While this app is great for exposing scumbags, it has a more gray side that invades the privacy of regular guys,” another anonymous student who was posted on the Tea app wrote. “The lack of an appeal system for guys like me is a valid criticism.”

In response to the formation of the Tea App, developer Xavier Lampkin made “TeaOnHer” in August, a forum for men to post about women. That week, the copycat app quickly reached the No. 3 spot for free apps in the Apple App Store.

The U.S. House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into the TeaOnHer app following reports that it exposed sensitive data from the women who were posted on the app .

In July 2025, a major data breach hit Tea Dating Advice, resulting in over 70,000 images being leaked and posted to the online message board 4chan. Included in the images were photos of government IDs meant to be used for user verification, which were supposed to be immediately deleted by the app. Online groups then seized the information, creating maps that pinpointed the addresses of 33,000 users across the country.

Despite the leak, users continued to post on the app. However, it was removed from the App Store shortly after the breach.

As of Feb. 2026, Tea Dating Advice is still unavailable on the App Store but free to download on the Google Play Store.

The app was recently relaunched as a website in January, featuring “meaningful improvements” to increase security and protect sensitive information, according to Jessica Dees, Tea’s head of trust and safety.

Some students remain skeptical of the ethical implications of using the app.

“Even though most guys probably think every girl out there actively uses the Tea app, I feel like it’s more so a fad,” an anonymous student wrote to Pipe Dream. “Like even as funny as the Tea app can be in concept, sometimes I would feel horrible just airing out private information about men I know.”