Kaila White

The Republic | azcentral.com

Much like the man it’s modeled after, BernieSingles.com seems to have exploded out of nowhere.

The site got so many views on its first day a week ago – nearly 1 million – that it crashed after 1,500 people joined in just an hour. It now has thousands of users and has been covered by The Huffington Post, GQ magazine and dozens more.

Arizona State University student Colten Caudle founded the site with about 15 friends as a joke.

“I didn’t sleep for a good four days” after the site’s launch, Caudle said, laughing. He and his team of about 20 volunteers often have worked 12- to 15-hour days to upgrade the site, switching servers at least three times.

And despite the big numbers and the fame, “We haven’t made any money yet,” he said. In fact, they’ve spent about $500 and hundreds of hours on it.

Gilbert teen’s joke becomes reality

It started when Caudle, a 19-year-old political science major from Gilbert, was a member of the Facebook group "Bernie Sanders' Dank Meme Singles,” where Sanders’ fans exchange jokes and flirt.

It was there that, earlier this month, Caudle met his now-girlfriend, Sadie Jensen.

“That was a major motivation for me; I wanted to see other people connect like that. Bernie fans share a lot, we have a lot in common,” he said.

Why not make a whole website for this?, he joked to the Facebook group, surprised when people encouraged it. The group’s founder and moderators from all over the country offered to volunteer.

He bought the domain name BernieSingles.com from Name-Keeper for $12 and launched it a few weeks later, changing the creators’ lives instantly.

The site now has about 8,000 members, though it fluctuates as moderators find and delete trolls, or people who flood the site to crash it or make it unusable.

As of Monday afternoon, there were at least 80 members from Arizona.

'The 1% aren't the only ones getting screwed'

So far, the site uses the same cheeky humor that’s followed Sanders’ campaign.

“Meet cool Bernie-loving dudes and dudettes,” the site reads. “Meet people that have a general understanding of how the economy works! Or even meet people that aren’t complete bigots!”

Another line from the site: “The 1% aren't the only ones getting screwed this election season.”

There’s a GoFundMe to raise money for a better server, and they might start selling Bernie Singles merchandise, said Joshua Kaunert, a 41-year-old volunteer for the site who lives in Chicago.

“The site should remain free, in the socialist vein,” Kaunert said.

Caudle initially thought the site was going viral because people thought it was ridiculous, but the thousands of people actually using the site to connect with each other have made all of the work worth it, he said.

“People are happy,” Kaunert said. “One of the things I’ve noticed a lot is people from red states or that have Republican families don’t have an outlet to talk about Bernie or progressive issues, so people say ‘It’s so great to have a place to express myself now and to meet people I wouldn’t normally meet.’ ”

BernieSingles.com isn't the only unexpected website to come out this year's presidential election season. Last week, we wrote a story about how JebBush.com redirected to a Donald Trump website.