In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, two technicians started a new social network built around an increasingly unloved feature of people’s iPhones: to actually talk into it. The app, called Clubhouse, was initially niche. There are no posts, no photos, no videos. As if to underline how little time you need to look at it, the home screen is an endless flurry of conference calls, called ‘rooms’, filled with people you may not know, organized around topics such as police brutality , music, sex, or whatever was on people’s minds. Users can be moderators, present their own conversations and determine who speaks. A digital audience can listen or ask to participate if they have something to say. The action took place all in your earplugs.
The app, started by Paul Davison, an entrepreneur who previously sold a company to Pinterest, and Rohan Seth, a former Google engineer, was a way to get people talking spontaneously and trading ideas , without wearing filters or an outfit. , they written later. Initially, it was only a few thousand users open – although they were the real users, Silicon Valley venture capitalists and others who controlled the flow of money and influence. And, true to its name, they put a crowd ahead by inviting invitations (they said it shouldn’t grow too fast). Then the big money rolled in. VC giant Andreessen Horowitz pumps in $ 12 million weeks after launch. By its ninth month of existence, it was worth it $ 1 billion.
Now, with more than two million users and the app on the brink of the mainstream, Clubhouse has become a focal point in the broader cultural wars surrounding censorship, online harassment and the far-reaching powers of Big Tech. The growth is unmistakable thanks to figures as diverse as Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Trump consultant Roger Stone – not to mention regular people who have longed for nearly a year of lockdown. Technical giants like Facebook and Twitter are actively copying Clubhouse and distributing the new talk features to their billions of users, giving a preview of what the future of online life is likely to look like.
Many of the rooms focus on business, investment, entrepreneurship and of course bitcoin. But it differs. There has been a lot devoted to black issues, discussions about music and art, LGBTQ + rights and politics. A group of black signatories organized a musical through his rooms. And although the number of users is strictly controlled by the company, it may not be long before someone can join. Existing users can invite friends, and invitations go as much as $ 97 per doll on Ebay.
This is not all Kumbaya. There were many trollish behaviors and accusations of harassment, racism and sexism. Each room has a moderator, and users can report others for abuse, the chats take place in real time, and are known to move to an ugly area. Black women in technology said that the rich, white old atmosphere exclusion. Anti-Semitism was a problem, with one CEO logging off the app after listening to a room ‘it’s literally just a bunch of people talking about why it’s okay to hate Jews. ‘ One woman complained of being targeted by men after talking about misogyny in a room tell the New York Times.
The harassment of clubhouse did not take place in an airfield – and in some cases it was amplified on other social networks until it was spun out of control. New York Times technical reporter Taylor Lorenz has faced an avalanche of Twitter and Substack trolls for her coverage of the app and what people are saying about it, which in one case contained a tweet with an error she later corrected. Spontaneity seems to have limits on the internet, where everything is recorded.
However, it is clear that it is catching on. Some users report expenses four to five hours a day In clubhouse rooms, it can sometimes feel like TED talks or radio programs in the morning, without the filter or hesitation that may come from hosts who have corporate sponsors. And that could lead to unexpected collaborations, such as after former Boogie Down Productions DJ D-Nice and comedian Tom Green made plans to collaborate on new music, just like this morning. Like a lot of what happens at Clubhouse, it can be amazing or awful. People will probably listen to either side.