Just hours before New York City began hoping for its (hopefully) New Year’s celebration at home, Alexandar Dimcevski walked through the grocery store and wondered how he became the last COVID-19 villain of 2020.
“We have been canceled by the liberal media,” Dimcevski said, a few days after the news of his app Vybe Together, just for house party planning, was just invited, sparking fresh fears that on New Year’s Eve users would turn to clandestine apps for social media are going to resort to partying indoors. , as the virus is proliferating throughout the United States. “Apple picked us up within hours. But we’re going to be back. ”
While Los Angeles has the worst wave of COVID-19 so far, with 10,000 deaths in LA County and a resident of the country now dying of the disease every 10 minutes, Vybe Together has become the face of technological opportunism and recklessness in the nightlife when New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz tweeted information about an early version.
“We did not have a voice, we did not have a channel to express our side of the story,” Dimcevski said. “Within hours,” he claimed, “articles had headlines that were not true.”
In its short life that residents of NYC and Miami have had available, Vybe Together has joined a map of ticket sites such as Eventbrite and social media platforms that, knowingly or not, types of parties for influencer mansions, hip-hop shows and stimuli that the city officials facilitated, facilitated. apparently contributed to the latest deadly resurgence. Vybe Together was built before COVID-19, but more than most others, it carried its illegal intent openly as the disease escalated.
As of Friday, just before New Year’s Eve, the app – which allowed users to host and market events for select applicants and set up private indoor parties as a ‘way to’ get your rebels’ – was no longer available on any major app platform, and TikTok canceled his account.
Before the website Vybe Together was updated with a short mea culpa (“We mean people should enjoy small gatherings in their apartments NOT illegal parties”), it had a “What about COVID” section that outlined its approach to the pandemic explains: “We know that Covid is a major health problem for the country, our communities, our friends and family. … Holding large-scale parties is very dangerous. That’s why we do not support it. But Vybe is a compromise, no big parties, but small gatherings. We can live with Vybe in these times, at least a little. “
Although no more than a few thousand users have ever successfully downloaded the app, and its founder claims that the users arranged ‘no more than two or three’ events per week, it quickly gained notoriety after which the elusive owners intended.
“I admit we branded it badly,” Dimcevski said when asked if he understood why people were overwhelmed by the app’s premise, since overwhelming hospitals house patients in gift shops and have oxygen and supplies. “We did not allow many people to take part in this. We understand that this is not the time to become mainstream. ”
Although Dimcevski’s company received the app-store guillotine for the obvious threat to public health, he did not think he was the worst offender.
“If people want to have illegal parties, they go to Eventbrite because you can be anonymous,” he said. (Eventbrite was the popular local ticket platform for parties ranging from rap shows to orgies during LA’s COVID-19 closing.) ‘There was nothing illegal with our app, it was just for small gatherings in apartments. It can range from board games to collaborating with girls next door. ”
The Beverly Hills restaurant La Scala tested the waters to hold a secret indoor NYE party; a popular infamous LA party series called Spanky’s had similar plans. A Christian singer-songwriter, Sean Feucht, drew dozens of opponents as he led his maskless fans in a potential superspreader sung by vulnerable homeless camps in Skid Row and Echo Park.
The city’s new rules state: ‘All public and private gatherings and events with people from more than one household are not allowed, except for extra-religious services and political expression.
But many residents and city officials fear that programs like Vybe Together will drive the party culture of the house even deeper underground on big nights like New Year’s Eve. LA province supervisor Hilda Solis told The Times: “From what we’ve seen with so many people attending events and trips, we remain very concerned about a new boom above the current boom.” Mayor Eric Garcetti wrote in a tweet“Los Angeles, my message could not be clearer: do not meet with those outside your household today. Do not present or attend a party in person. Do not travel. Please celebrate virtually and welcome the new year with the residents of your home. Stay safe, save lives. ”
Dimcevski (a LinkedIn who has since removed himself as a graduate of New York University and was born in Sweden) seemed torn between the newfound global attention and the sudden reputation of his app. He gives no more information about himself or Vybe Together, except that the app is based in New York, and perhaps, surprisingly, he said that he received funding from a technology grant program in New York two years ago. “That’s the crazy part, because they gave us money,” he said. “But no one has made contact yet.”
According to him, the app was never operated in LA, the global heart of the more influential culture. The parties that facilitated Vybe Together would have violated public health orders here. But Dimcevski said that once Vybe Together comes out of the app store jail, he finally wants to try again – the site is asking fans to stay in touch for the planned return.
“We will never approve of illegal parties. Big underground raves, no, no, no, ”Dimcevski said. “It was just for the coolest people in town. We used the app process to find out if you had the sauce. ”