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Digital media has played a historical role in orienting LGBTQ+ young people's notions of 'community' around performances of identity and selfhood. In our research with LGBTQ+ dating app users aged 18–35, 'queer community' materialised in relation to participants' expectations of ethical alignment with others, with an emphasis on performing a reflexive self who was clear and consistent in what they sought on apps. Participants described apps as providing access to community, or enhancing existing connections forged via other social media or in-person contexts. In ways that both cohered with and diverged from historical framings of 'queer community', the concept emerged as a shared understanding of ethical conduct, where emotional safety and connecting with 'nice people' were prioritised. App users acknowledged the challenges of navigating the constraints and possibilities of dating app cultures and infrastructures, alongside negotiating one's political responsibilities to 'queer community'.

Research exploring digital intimate publics tends to consider social media platforms and dating/hook-up apps separately, implying distance between social and sexual communication practices. This paper troubles that delineation by drawing on LGBTQ+ young people's accounts of negotiating safety and risk in dating/hook-up apps, in which friendship practices are significant. We explore four key themes of friendship that arose in our analysis of interviews and workshop discussions: sharing mutuals (or friends-in-common) with potential dates/hook-ups; making friends through apps; friends supporting app negotiations; and friends' involvement in safety strategies. Through analysis of these data, we firstly argue that friendship is often both an outcome and an organising force of LGBTQ+ young people's uses of dating/hook-up apps, and secondly, that media sites commonly defined as social (e.g. Instagram) or sexual (e.g. Tinder) are imbricated, with friendship contouring queer sex and dating practices.