Feeld was a dating app for freaks. Now some people call it “Normy Hell.”

Isn’t it just Morales? She happened to be on the dating app Feeld the night a man was arrested by ICE agents within a mile of her apartment in Brooklyn, New York.

After the divorce, Morales, a 35-year-old comedian, was in the market for something completely casual. That’s when I came across Paul’s profile. “I did two swipes, and it took me a second to get what I was seeing,” she says. He was 32 years old, straight, and, like Morales, looking for “casual fun.” It was also a mile away. Then I noticed his bio: “Hi, I’m Paul! ICE agent from out of town looking for fun :)”

At first, Morales thought it was a bad joke, “but there was nothing else in the profile to indicate it was, or even what the joke was going to be,” she says. News alerts on her social media sites indicated an active ICE operation in the area. “I wonder, is this guy kidnapping one of my neighbors right now?”

Of all the dating and hookup apps, Morales felt least impressed with Feld when she joined in the summer of 2025. She “loved the radical honesty” of the people on the platform. But this was the first time. “Obviously I don’t expect everyone there to have the same progressive political beliefs as me, but the Field seems like the kind of place — because of its sex-positive nature, and what it embraces — where it’s shocking to see someone like that there.”

While its experience is unique, it represents a larger shift felt by some of Feeld’s power users as the app, once a space for funky, network-friendly data, now caters to everyone.

Launched in 2014 as 3nder, Feeld made a name for itself by embracing people who didn’t fit into the boxes of any other dating app. (Her original offering: Tinder but for people who have threesomes.) Looking for a playmate who is two-spirited but not bi? Are you interested in finding a brat who falls into slavery and ethical non-monogamy? It was feeling whimsical.

This is changing. According to the company, from 2021 to 2025, membership grew by 368 percent, with a nearly 200 percent jump in new users over the same period. In data shared with WIRED, “Find Community” became the fastest-growing relationship model on the platform, rising 257 percent among new users from December 2025 to mid-January 2026.

“We are able to do something really big and important for people,” says Anna Kirova, CEO of Field. “And a lot of what we stand for can resonate with more people, not because we impose it, but because we find a way to reflect what people want and then deliver it.”

But many long-time users describe Feeld as a place that has transformed from a dedicated platform into a “desperate” “plain hell” overrun by vanilla daters who “use the app as the new Tinder”. This is in addition to “scammers”, “fan-only matches” and bots. The biggest complaint, as one user on Reddit said last year, “is the number of people now on the app who are not sexually open.” Another added: Feeld “Had the biggest and fastest dating app drop you’ve ever seen.”

At the heart of app evolution is a question that lingers and swells: Who exactly is the platform these days?

On Tuesday, Fild It will launch a new “self-discovery experience” called “Meditations.” Developed by University of Michigan assistant professor April Williams, the meditations are a 30-minute guided questionnaire — available in-app or online to non-members, free of charge — that measures your ability in three areas: desires, boundaries, and relationship preferences. Across 165 total prompts – questions range from “What might prevent communication from moving forward?” to “Are you going to use toys or large objects on someone?” – Meditations quiz users on things like their affinity, awareness of red flags, sexual drive, potential for exploration, and self-expression. (Users are given a percentage score in each area as well as a summary of personalized scores.)