The uninvited person’s guide to Clubhouse

Will you be joining the heard? Here are some reasons to check out the newest social-media format, and a few things to watch out for if you do decide to go in.

Your cool friend got her invite. Your techie cousin is sure this will be the next big thing. Since Clubhouse was launched on iOS last April, it’s ridden on pandemic boredom and our need to connect, to become the format of the moment, with 10 million sign-ups as of January a $1 billion valuation.

You, meanwhile, have one more social-media format to figure out. Clubhouse is… part InstaLive, part podcast, part panel discussion and conference call. You need an invite (and an Apple device) to join, but once you’re in, the app offers access to all its rooms — live topic-based audio platforms that pop up and vanish as people set them up and conclude their chats.

The rooms typically contain two groups: talkers and listeners. Up to 5,000 people can join a room and everyone can see who else is listening. Listeners often get to pipe up and chat too.

US-based founders Rohan Seth and Paul Davison have said that they wanted to build a social network that was driven by conversations, rather than posts. Clubhouse needs two voices for a chat to start. And either hosts or listeners can moderate, to amplify or mute a listener’s voice. So really, it’s like eavesdropping on a conference call or joining in on a podcast, depending on the room.

Fans love it. Unlike Twitter, you’re not flinging text into the void. Unlike TikTok, no one cares if you can’t dance. This is more realistic socialising — people actually talking to each other, especially in smaller rooms that fill up like a house party open to strangers.

The conversations, at least for now, are free-flowing, unscripted and relaxed. Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban is a fan. Tesla’s Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have dropped in, nearly crashing the app (the room limit of 5,000 was waived for Musk).

Photographer Rasshi Ganeriwal, 36, says she’s joined chats about podcasting, photography and design and found them to be insightful and informative. “What’s cool is that anyone comfortable enough to speak can start an event,” she says. “I’ve attended open rooms where moderators encouraged Q&A and active participation from anyone keen to learn. I’m enjoying all the gyaan.”

Chats, for now, are dominated by men and the standard Silicon Valley preoccupations: cryptocurrency, hacking your workout, digital art, hacking your morning routine, Series B funding, hacking mentorships, hustle culture, hacking your reading habit. But theatre types are staging plays in rooms now. Food writers Krish Ashok and Nandita Iyer have set up a chat on Saturday evenings. And, no surprise, you can join a singles room and find dates.

There’s déjà vu. Remember how much fun Twitter was when it was just smart people sharing their thoughts? Or the early days of Instagram, when it was full of great artists and creators? This is Clubhouse’s honeymoon period — everything’s still organic, there are no marketing types trying to monetise every conversation with templatised branding, and access is still limited by the invite-only and iOS-only terms.

But the platform is already grappling with hate speech and abuse, naïvely enforcing community guidelines only in October. More people will bring more noise, more trolls.

Critics note that Clubhouse has fewer privacy filters than other platforms. More alarmingly, while you can’t record the chats you participate in, Clubhouse is listening and recording everything. It has access to your phone number and your contacts as well as your tweets if you choose to link your Twitter acccount.

And quitting is hard. You can only delete your Clubhouse account the old-fashioned way — by sending their support team an email and hoping they acquiesce.

Meanwhile, the really popular chats have a way of leaking out of the rooms. When Elon Musk dropped in, many listeners used separate devices to live-stream the conversation on YouTube. Which also means it’s not such an exclusive app, after all.