I find Clubhouse complicated and so I wrote a user manual

The newest kid in social media town is the audio app Clubhouse. As far as I’m starting to get the hang of it, it feels like a podcast meets talk show and I find it especially very complicated. But at the same time also intriguing. Time for some research, text, and explanation then.

Clubhouse has been around for a year, was already a rough 100 million dollars with 1500 members, but suddenly boomed at the end of January when Elon Musk had something to say about it. I was especially greedy because of the fact that you need to get an invite to join the social medium. Which works just like in the early stages of Pinterest. But I also find it incredibly fascinating that you can just end up in a chat where Oprah is the host or where that same Elon is suddenly announced as a speaker. At the beginning of February, I finally managed to get an invitation, but since then I mostly feel lost.

Here’s the thing: I’m just starting to get good at podcasts. When I pedal away for half an hour on my spinning bike in the morning, I select something nice and listen. I find that very efficient. Just like when I take a walk in the woods, it’s also a suitable opportunity to listen to something interesting. But then there’s Clubhouse, where you have to log in at a certain time to be part of it. The app is all about audio, which can only be listened to once. So if you’re not there for the talk at 6:30 PM? Too bad for you, you missed it.

How it works, you want to know. When you enter Clubhouse, you provide a list of preferences. This ranges from beauty to social issues. For example, I want to talk about entrepreneurship and travel. Furthermore, based on your phone book and other social media behavior, you get some suggestions on who to follow. I followed Liesbeth Rasker, but also Celine Charlotte, and the group Writers Worldwide sounded interesting to me.

In Clubhouse, you have hosts a.k.a. moderators who organize a live conversation daily or a few times a week that you can eavesdrop on. They create a room for this, invite other speakers, and you’re ready to start. In such a room, you have the moderator, the speakers, and then a bunch of listeners. Those listeners are selected based on relevance, so you have an advantage if you are followed by one of the speakers. The moderators determine the conversation and indicate whether you can join in or just keep quiet. If you want to respond to what is being said, you have to raise your hand. All in all, it’s organized and neat.

At least, it seems that Clubhouse is now also being used for chats where the riffraff of the world can give their opinions on everything unfiltered. Which is less nice, but it is still social media. Clubhouse itself claims that conversations cannot be listened to again, but Elon Musk’s talk is already on YouTube.

And now the hardest part: making sure you’re on time to follow such a conversation live. I haven’t succeeded in that so far, so I’ve just put one in my agenda with a reminder. It almost feels like work.