Tech Unicorn Driven by Black Creative Voice
The Clubhouse Application Rides a Wave of Success with Black Influencers and Creatives.
Did you just finish getting your Tik Tok routine together? I regret to inform you that you are already too late! There are new social media platforms in town that the movers and shakers are jumping on. The top of the list: the Clubhouse app. If you haven’t heard, it is being beta tested on the iOS platform. You would be amazed at the link between this billion-dollar audio chat company and the emergence of black users.
- As of December 2020, it was valued at nearly $100 million and had 600,000 registered users. On January 21, 2021, the valuation hit one billion US dollars.
- Records the conversations in private rooms
- You have to be given an invitation to join.
- The more you participate, the more invites you receive.
- No internal messaging, reliance on Instagram and Twitter to connect.
The Social Media Problem: The main issue that most users face is the same issue with most social media, false information. People fluff and fabricate their biography space, and it is easy to spread that misinformation across platforms. The only method of accountability is to get people kicked out, which can negatively affect whoever invited the person in. Reminiscent of the early lockdown Zoom experiences, often people join “clubrooms” with an intent to disrupt and derail the group. The feature of reporting people is easy to find, use, and is taken extremely seriously by the Clubhouse community.
Black Voices Matter: During the jump in valuation, the face of the app was a skilled guitarist and influencer Bomani X. During that time the footprint for black and brown folx expanded on the app. Now you can find Hip Hop artists and celebrities like the Game and Joe Budden daily. The founders and investors were conscious of growing the app from the ground up with diversity as a central feature of the community. Even in the funding announcement post, the first topics of discussion cited are “social justice reform, BLM and anti-racism.”
A Local-Global advantage: The social capital of an ‘invite only’ space has attracted influencers and local celebrities. Duval county socialites have hosted rooms and moderated with people from all around the world. The thirst for an audience is met with eager ears on Clubhouse. WJCT just hosted their first room with host Melissa Ross as an extension of her morning show. Local podcasts and DJs tape shows for the globe to hear. As creative people and business people venture out in the time of COVID, organizations like Clubhouse help people connect from far away.
Clubhouse recently announced it has raised another $100 million funding round, led by Ben Horowitz’s (a black man) a16z fund. The app is now firmly a Silicon Valley Unicorn, a private startup valued at over $1 billion. The future is Black and booming, but there are so many different variables to this community, that one cannot be sure of anything. Bomani X has since left the platform. “We always get the short end of the stick by creating the culture and pushing the popularity of these apps and platforms but not always having an equal share in equity.”