International audience Situated in the field of digital migration studies, this research explores how international students use a dating application (Grindr) to present themselves and carve out an intermediary identity at the intersection of their countries of origin and the host country. The study combines an analysis of Grindr’s interface where profiles are built and displayed and semi-guided interviews with 12 individuals in order to investigate how they create online versions of themselves, harness a range of identity and semiotic adjustments with a view to interact with other individuals and confront themselves to this online arena. The entextualisations (Jones, 2018) which mobilize textual and visual resources to build one’s profile and what users have to say about them are examined to uncover students’ strategies of self-presentation and the tensions that can arise. On the one hand, the visuality of dating applications seems to incite gay individuals to conform to norms of whiteness and virility. On the other hand, these applications may facilitate international students’ socialisation but also confront them with the toughness of social relations and manifestations of racialization.