Like many people around the world around the middle of our first pandemic year, I discovered Clubhouse with a small frisson of excitement and expectation. Will I be able to finally find all “my people” in one space? Will I be able to jump into conversations without having to explain or preface myself? In these times of being holed in and distanced, will I feel the immediacy of community?
It's been several months since I joined Clubhouse, and honestly, I haven’t given it enough time but my response is...well, ambivalent. I actually sought an invitation from my brother, after hearing about the app on tech news sites as this bright new thing from the Valley. My brother sounded excited about the trivia groups he found on there, including one that dabbled in etymology (“you’ll enjoy that” he insisted) while his wife talked about serendipitously jamming with fellow amateur singers and finding a group of Hyderabad history buffs. All of this pointed to the possibility of enjoyable and maybe even productive conversations in the pockets between work. Add to that the fact that these chats did not have to involve staring at a screen.
I started to respond to the early morning notifications on my phone about someone inviting me to join a room, usually about books (What are you reading this month?) or technology and science (Talk nerdy to me). I’d stumble mid-way into conversations around inspirational authors or start-up shenanigans and just as quickly stumble out, feeling awkward and not quite up to it. It did not help that most people were at the beginning of their evenings (California time), chilled out in an after-work sort of way, while I was at the beginning of my day (Indian Standard Time), occupied with organizing meals and figuring out my to-dos. It also didn’t help that I struggled to identify with the register of the conversation—true, there was plenty of geographic and ethnic diversity (not so much age), but the rules of engagement were not entirely clear. There was what looked like a “high table”, with a set of speakers/moderators, and a hall full of others whose mikes were muted and who had to raise their hand to ask to speak. In one of my early wanderings through the hallways of Clubhouse, I heard my name mentioned in an invitation to introduce myself and speak. I overcame a moment of panic and did go up and say my bit, as did many others who seemed much more comfortable and familiar with each other. The thing to do—as with any other community-in-the-making—would be to stick with it and get to know the others, while also allowing them to get to know you. But more often than not, I found that it was hard to be present in a room talking about books that taught me about writing when I had to tend to milk boiling over or answer the doorbell at 7 a.m.
So, what exactly was my motivation in joining Clubhouse? What could it give me that all other social networks that I was a part of did not? The idea that communities could be built on voice was certainly alluring. Would we be able to listen to each other with a patience that the rapid flows of text and image on other platforms seemed to preclude? Would there be a lower degree of algorithmic moderation/manipulation that governed which groups we would see and could become a part of?
Certainly, the invitation to listen to a group of people with little preface other than the short description or cryptic label was as open-ended as could be. Depending on how vocal or silent you chose to be, you could conceivably shape the direction of conversation, or participate to varying degrees—even while you continued to be ‘seen’. You can simply drop in and check out rooms without making a commitment, and stay as long as you wish (or leave quietly). The hope is, ultimately, you will find a group or two that will have “your people”. And honestly, the initial sense of exclusivity about the app—being available only on iOS and by invitation—promised something special. It truly felt like you were being invited to be part of something...okay...a club.
But Clubhouse’s appeal also lies in its positioning somewhere between the private (where everyone knows everyone else or at least where they come from) and what seems to be a public safe space (with greater degrees of unknown). Launched in April 2020, the most recent estimates peg the number of users at around 10 million with over 18 million app downloads, with the biggest jump having come in the early months of 2021. The fact that the launch and the early growth have happened during the pandemic is not coincidence; the feeling of isolation and loss of community certainly has pushed us all to search more actively for spaces where we can feel like we belong and people we belong with. It seems to be an app for our times, cannily combining a sense of the times with the technological toolkit to appeal to those who inhabit the social web. As Anna Weiner wrote in The New Yorker in early March this year,
“...Clubhouse seems to have emerged fully formed. It launched with a savvy, fomo-based marketing strategy, and a band of prominent users who were eager to have another channel through which to feel heard.”
Like Weiner, I find it intriguing to think about Clubhouse as a moment that speaks to our collective yearning for the intimacy of community while also pandering to our habituated reluctance to let go of a level of anonymity. Voice allows us to do that. We can be present, we can give of ourselves through our vocal chords, yet we can remain hidden. An early observer of the politics of Internet culture, Mark Poster, spoke almost disparagingly of the limitations of “flickers on our screen” in generating any substantive politics. But voice-unlike text--is more than a flicker. Speaking aloud demands a greater commitment to marking presence than non-verbal or symbolic communication, and mediated speech allows a curtain of comfortable distance.
The New Yorker’s David Remnick, in a conversation with staff writer Jiyang Fan talks about how Clubhouse has become for many Chinese a public space where you have open, even tentative, conversations about identity. In a culture where engaging in such conversations publicly can be risky, Fan notes that it’s a space where people can start to build some sort of narrative about how to be, often speaking louder than they could ever hope to whisper elsewhere.
Clubhouse is certainly not the only company to find a voice in this emerging public/private sphere of what Weiner calls “drop in audio”. Twitter now has Spaces, an in-app feature that allows users to host and listen to synchronous audio events. But having attended a couple of these events on Twitter, I can see the difference in the two at this point (apps continuously evolve, so who’s to say what they will both look like a few months from now?). Yes, they are both about real-time audio, but while Twitter is more like live broadcast radio, Clubhouse is like a busy, eclectic convention centre rented simultaneously by multiple groups and you can choose which parallel session to enter. Spaces hosts events while Clubhouse has rooms that you can become a part of. Those who have started to use Twitter Spaces—such as journalists, policy makers—tend to be professional communicators, while those starting rooms in Clubhouse seem to represent a wider spectrum. I’ve run into engineers-turned-poets, Wall Street types who have taken to organic farming, entrepreneurs who are trivia buffs, and of course people who want to talk about life, the universe and everything. Twitter Spaces is at this point mostly about communication as dissemination (even with the Q & A formats), while Clubhouse is about communication as conversation—and building community through conversation.
One morning, a few weeks after I first tentatively slid into that room of bookish people, I stopped by again in the short interval between coffee and breakfast, and was surprised when one of the moderators noticed and remarked that I hadn’t been around in a while. I offered my time-zone excuse, but then wondered whether that was all, and whether, if there were more rooms operational at hours more conducive to me, I would spend time there.
After all, what exactly is the promise of an audio-only social network? The convenience of being able to engage while doing any number of other things (as with podcasts). As mentioned earlier, the possibility of generating presence in a less obtrusive way. The ability to listen without the pressure of response. And, with both Clubhouse and Spaces, the advantage of dropping in and out quietly.
Why is it that the initial frisson of excitement at encountering a new forum has not led amounted to much, for me? I still desultorily wander down the hallways of Clubhouse, checking out active rooms and seeing who has joined recently. I can see myself, when time permits, joining a trivia quiz or singing along (out of tune) in an Antakshari session. But community? Not so far. And I do blame myself, largely, because community building demands time and effort; it requires that you not only listen casually but also speak. It’s about doing the work to find that group of people with whom you can exchange not only words, but also silences.
Joining the club? Not quite—yet.
interesting!