WHY I LIKE CLUBHOUSE

I’m a new user of Clubhouse, the latest social network coming out of the Silicon Valley. I was invited to join in January 2021 and initially I thought it was the latest “me too” social platform. I joined right after Elon Musk gave a piece of his mind to Vlad Tenev the CEO of Robinhood on the Game Stock rollercoaster. My first thoughts was that Clubhouse was a gimmick and that it was a marginal new proposition that is nice but not really that different. 

But I've now changed my mind.

After attending a few sessions I realised that Clubhouse is both similar and different from other social platforms. Like other platforms it allows individuals to connect with other like-minded people to share information, experiences and views. But it is also very different from other platforms. These differences are quite distinctive:

The Use of Live Voice

The use of live voice and not a recording of a conversation adds many new dimensions. Participants can of course take notes or even record the discussion, but the App does not provide users with a transcript or a recording (It is worth mentioning that Clubhouse does in fact record conversations, but these are not accessible to the public and are available Solely for the purpose of supporting incident investigations and are deleted soon after the end of the session.) The live interaction forces participants to be present and in the moment. Engagement is hard to rehearse so what people say is often more authentic and spontaneous than a written or recorded post. But voice also adds other things. The intonation of the speaker provides insight on how they feel about what they are saying. It’s harder (not impossible of course) to fake honesty when you’re speaking. Even as a passive listener, the discussions feel more real, and the feeling that a listener can quickly contribute by becoming a speaker adds immediacy.

Furthermore, live voice makes the conversation more personal and, judging from the rooms I attended, the exchanges are more polite and often well articulated. The posturing of other platforms, where complex content is exchanged through emojis, sharp incomplete sentences or aggressive videos, is absent here. 

Also it empowers the participant to choose from a range of modes of engagement. One can participate and exchange views in real time (hard to achieve well on other platforms), they can listen carefully (closing your eyes is a powerful way of internalizing on what is being said) or, on the other extreme,  they can listen while doing something else so that the conversation floats into one’s consciousness almost invisibly. For me this allows much greater engagement, interest and versatility than staring into a device. The live dimension adds to the need for focus because unlike a podcast, you can rewind if you miss something. 

 The Active Moderation

The participants to the rooms are split into two main categories: speakers and audience. Only the voice of the speakers can be heard. Everyone else is silent. The speakers are in turn split into two groups: Moderators and plain Speakers. The moderators can decide to invite people on stage, mute their mike and push them back into the audience. The audience is also split into two groups: the first group is called “Followed by the Speakers” and the other is creatively named “Others”. Both are silent until allowed on stage. To speak they need to raise their hands and be introduced to the “stage” by one of the moderators. 

All rooms’ success relies on the ability of the moderators to shape the conversation. Their aim here is to engage as many people as possible and to retain attention and the flow of the discussion. It is very difficult to keep audiences engaged if there is chaos onstage, with people speaking over each other. So moderators are very proactive and do not hesitate to refocus the group or to expel disruptive voices. This leads to a very polite interaction between speakers - almost as polite as you would have in a face to face chat. In virtually all the rooms I joined the conversation has been as polite as it would have been on a live panel with a real audience. This made the exchange of ideas more efficient and the lack of posturing allowed a real interaction. When was the last time we saw that on a social platform?

It Does NOT Follow You

The fact that you can simply leave any room at will, that nothing is recorded and that there is no written record of your interactions means that you can actually engage through Clubhouse with little consequence. Of course there may be people in the rooms that you visit that may know you or who succeed in finding you on other platforms - but it is practically impossible to get trolled on Clubhouse. If you are “attacked” in a room - assuming that the other speakers and moderators do not intervene - your ability to walk away and the inability of your challenger to follow you lifts a lot of the angst associated with social platforms. 

 But Clubhouse is not without flaws. 

The fact that it shows you only rooms that are attended by people you follow means that one could easily fall into group-think traps. This can be further exacerbated by a directive attitude of the moderators. As with all other social platforms this risk remains and requires thoughtfulness from the side of the user. Also the fact that you can readily leave or be blocked could make itM hard to have real disagreements in a Clubhouse room. It is in these situations that the skills of the moderator in keeping the conversation constructive becomes a real asset. 

We do know that Clubhouse is growing fast on the back of its invitation only approach. This has created an audience of like-minded people that potentially deliver group-think but also engaged and interesting discussions. What will happen when the platform opens up. Will this diversification water-down the level of engagement?  

Eventually, people with bad intentions will establish themselves in Clubhouse. It’s hard to do pornography on a voice only platform but recruitment and grooming of vulnerable people could easily happen in closed rooms. I wonder how they will be able to monitor what is being said without impacting the core values of the platform.

Lastly, we do not know how they are planning to monetise. Will they go after advertising or data harvesting or other income sources used by the other platforms? If so, what will be the impact on how Clubhouse operates and feels? 

But my last question is could the success of Clubhouse be due to the Covid pandemic? I don’t think so but it's definitely a consideration. Will people still want to chat as much when the New Normal starts looking more like the Old Normal again?

I hope so, as a bit of civility was definitely missing in social media.