What is Clubhouse? (and why do you want in on it so much?)
The word Clubhouse may have been popping up in conversations you’ve had or overheard lately. Or maybe you’ve seen a friend post about Clubhouse invitations on your socials. The social media feed is a busy place and unless you’re in the business of content creation you may have scrolled past or glazed over these mentions about the latest social media platform.
So what is Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is an audio-only platform, a place for casual, drop-in audio chats, and perhaps some live music too. It’s the kind of place where beauty filters, videos of skateboarders drinking Ocean Spray and Bernie Sanders memes aren’t required. Height, size, gender, disability, colour and all manner of human factors that make us unique are inconsequential in the Clubhouse. Which sounds almost as refreshing as a glass of cranberry juice.
Got an invite? Here’s what you can expect to find inside.
Enter the App and you’ll find Clubs (groups of people), with ‘rooms’ containing people talking ‘on stage’, where you can go in and out quietly to listen. It’s a podcast on steroids – being live and open to whatever may happen, with other people in the room at the time. Moderators can potentially invite you “on stage”, giving you the opportunity to speak.
The idea is that you can explore different conversations and potentially meet with friends or new contacts from around the world. The topics are completely free rein, aside from the code of conduct – the theory is that you can find anything you want to chat about and if it’s not already being talked about, you can even create your own room to get the conversation going. The lack of visual cues seems to breed a level of candidness not felt on other platforms, resulting in authentic human to human (by way of smartphone) interactions.
To the ‘uninvited’, it might seem that Clubhouse is the Chateau Marmont of social media platforms, with whispers of celebrities gracing its rooms in every article or blog you read. And the rumours are true. But unlike the famous Hollywood hotspot, this is a place where celebrities can surprise us.
Paris Hilton took to the Clubhouse stage recently to chat about her recent film and podcast, but the first item on her agenda was trying to garner support for her work advocating child abuse issues to get a bill passed in the Utah legislature.
Can’t get in? Here’s why.
You might be wondering why you can’t just sign up and start Clubhousing.
For the early adopters of trends (like your mate who was first to sign up to the ‘gram) this is probably a particularly painful time in their lives. The signup process involves this; give Clubhouse your name, email, blood type and firstborn (just kidding), hit submit, and get the following message.
Thanks for signing up! We’ve reserved @pleaseletmein for you.
It’s a brilliant go-to-market strategy really. How, in a world saturated with social media platforms that meet nearly every need, can yet another launch successfully? It seems the answer to Clubhouse was, make it exclusive.
If you want a ticket to the Clubhouse party, you need an invite from another member (each member is given only two invites to pass on). It’s hardly surprising to learn that a Clubhouse-invitation black market has now surfaced, with users all over the world desperate to get their hands on one of these exclusive invitations.
Clubhouse hasn’t just come out of nowhere
While most are just hearing about Clubhouse now, the platform has actually been kicking around for over a year. It made waves in China flying under the government’s social media radar but has since been banned. Outside of China, Clubhouse only hit their stride in recent months after Elon Musk decided to casually pop in and grill Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood shortly after the Gamestop share debacle, and Musk purchased a squillion Bitcoin.
What are your thoughts on Clubhouse? Are you in? What are the must-join clubs? We want to hear all about it.
