Clubhouse: What is it and how do I get an invite?
Clubhouse, Clubhouse, what is Clubhouse? Elon Musk is on it, Brad Pitt’s on it, Mark Zukerberg is on it, do you need to be on it?
Clubhouse is an invite-only social media app and platform for audio focussed communication. This could be the most perfect app for the pandemic since we are all in loungewear or pyjamas with barely brushed hair. No more edited photographs, crafted video and viral tweets, it takes more effort to craft an audience and you only hear raw, unedited thoughts in Clubhouse. How do you keep an audience listening without visual cues, producers assisting with sound or additional lighting?
I’d describe Clubhouse like a mash up of live radio and a podcast that you can participate on and be spontaneous. You can connect with contemporaries and peers around the world transcending time zones, geography, age and all other boundaries to listen in or participate in authentic discussions for thirty minutes or twenty four hours. There is apparently a zero tolerance policy of trolling and the speech interation seems to be respectful and patient with the occasional profanity thrown in but we’re all cool liberals, right?
In Clubhouse you can start your own club and/or start your own room. Conversations are initiated in rooms only. Apart from creating your own room, the rooms and conversations you see and are able to jump into depend upon the people you follow therefore the advice from experienced Clubhouse members is to be careful with who you follow.
In my ten days on the app I have listened in to an almost twenty four hour conversation about the New York Times and freedom of expression. I didn’t stay in the conversation for the entire time but dipped in and out throughout the day and the conversation was engaging as it included experienced journalists, editors, photographers, readers, international perspectives, even people who found themselves being covered by the newspaper and their experience.
As the founder of a sustainable fashion brand I have also dropped in and participated in conversations around sustainable fashion meeting peers, buyers, journalists and more. There’s an egalitarian quality and un-rushed vibe where people have time to listen. This can at times be a bad thing when people drone on and on. Cut the mic please… What I’m hoping to do is to connect with more of you and bring some of the issues we discuss in Pop Magazine to life as live discussions in Clubhouse.
Clubhouse has an infinite number of MLM, business and personal coach strategists and billionaire/seven figure founder groups which are tiresome. If you have a disproportionate number of these clubs in your feed I’d recommend unfollowing some accounts.
The app is still in test phase and only available on iPhone to make it even more niche! I believe it will be rolled out to include Android phones soon so hold on if that’s you.