Woman Turns Hinge Into A Comedy Platform With the Tim Allen Grunt Challenge

Any man hoping to score a date with cosplayer, actor and content creator Kathenn will have to flex their pipes before they can even think about “Tool Time.”

Anyone unlucky enough to be single in 2025 knows that the culture of dating apps and left swipes is a broken system. Men spend all day on Hinge, Tinder and Bumble trying to score a single match who probably won’t even message back, and women are forced to endure a constant stream of cheesy, unoriginal or downright inappropriate pick-up lines until they wise up and turn off their notifications. Unfortunately for singles of both genders, companies like Hinge and Tinder have little incentive to repair their borderline inoperable algorithms, as the less likely users are to find their perfect match, the higher the chances are that they stick around and maybe even splurge on a premium subscription.

Thankfully, there is a fix to the misery brought on by the state of 21st century dating, and all it takes is a little creativity and a fondness for comedy. Sure, it might not get anyone laid, but it will have men moaning like they’re finally getting screwed all the same.

For months now, Hinge user Kathenn has been challenging her matches to send her their best impression of Tim Allen’s iconic grunt from the introductory sequence of Home Improvement before she will agree to chat with them, and she’s been posting the best — and the worst — responses that make us laugh harder than Allen ever has:

Now, it’s unclear if Kathenn has ever actually gone out with a contestant from the funniest TikTok dating show ever created, but, selfishly, I kinda hope that none of these wannabe Toolmen manage to win her heart and the Tim Allen grunt challenge goes on indefinitely. And, considering that the view count on Kathenn’s series has gone from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands, it’s possible that the success of the challenge will inspire a trend of TikTokers finding their own 1990s sitcom soundbites for suitors to try and master for our amusement.

If any single women out there are looking for ideas on how to make their own Hinge experiences less miserable, I’d like to suggest that you select your dates based on their readings of the iconic line: “These pretzels are making me thirsty!”