Anyone who hasn’t gotten a Clubhouse invite in the last few days is either not socially relevant or doesn’t have an iPhone. At worst, both. No other social network has generated such hype in recent years. To make a long story short: Clubhouse is the hot shit. Invites to Clubhouse are sold on eBay for up to 50 euros, on other networks people are begging for an invitation link.
Because everything takes place live, you always have the feeling that you are missing something important. Accordingly, the Fomo effect (Fear of missing out) could not be higher. In the US, Clubhouse launched in May 2020, and for the past few weeks, the hype has been happening here as well. What Clubhouse is, who and if you need it, a comment.
Clubhouse: Podcasts on steroids
Basically, Clubhouse is an audio-based debate club for iPhone users. Read that right: Android users are almost a year after launch, still left out. The good news: it should also be available for Android at some point. So if you’ve got an iPhone and one of the coveted invitations, you can meet other people in so-called rooms to discuss topics.
Anyone can open a room and invite others to join. There are roles in the room, a distinction is made between presenters and the audience. Basically, you can compare it to a panel discussion that you know from conferences: On the “panel” in Clubhouse, any number of people discuss with each other while the audience listens.
Listeners can call in and, with a bit of luck, will be given the floor by the moderator. There is no time limit for a room and the discussions are live. So the fear of missing something is infinitely greater than with podcasts, because Clubhouse streams are not recorded at this stage.
If a room is not private, anyone can join the room as a listener. Besides rooms, there are also so-called “clubs”. Clubhouse itself writes: “Clubhouse Clubs” are interest-based groups that members can create and join. They are a bit like a combination of a Facebook group and a Twitter group.” In principle, a room or club can deal with any topic. Because Clubhouse is purely audio-based, it is often compared to podcasts. But the main difference to the podcast is that Clubhouse is live and much easier to create by the users. Unlike podcasts, there’s no hosting, no podcast platform, and no technology to worry about. Clubhouse is very easy to use: start the app, open the room, done.
As with other social networks, you can also follow people. With Clubhouse, the number of followers plays an even bigger role. That’s because Clubhouse sends out push messages to users whenever someone on their follower list opens a room. Also, when someone enters a room, it is immediately visible to followers. The more followers, the more crowded the spaces, which again leads to more followers. Then, when a person with a lot of followers comes into a room, it gets very crowded very quickly.
Clubhouse: Self-congratulatory platform
The effect that you know from all media, that you always see the same faces, unfortunately also takes place at Clubhouse. Only now it’s hourly. Those who like to hear themselves talk have now found the platform par excellence. The invitation system of Clubhouse gives the whole thing an additional elitist touch, because whoever is now at Clubhouse must be important somehow and must also have something to say. After all, where does one have the opportunity to listen to Thomas Gottschalk and Sascha Lobo live together and sometimes participate with spoken contributions?
Diversity is such a problem at Clubhouse. If you look at the rooms in German-speaking countries, the proportion of men is very high. It is true that there are always discussions led by women or at which women are present, but this reflects the image of society.
Discussions on payments, fintech, e-commerce and banking are, as in real life, male-heavy. Clubhouse’s invitation principle enhances the effect and the “best buddy principle” takes effect. Friends of their own sex are usually preferred. Since the number of invitations is initially limited to three, this does not lead to more diversity.
People with disabilities should have almost no chance. There is no audio transcript for the deaf and accessibility is not an issue at Clubhouse. Introverts are out at Clubhouse anyway. While you can build your visibility on the side on other social platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and the like, you get a problem on Clubhouse. Because it takes time. And in times of homeschooling, childcare or normal work, you just can’t open a room at Clubhouse in between. Unlike other social media, Clubhouse cannot be used on the side, which is due to the principle of Clubhouse: On the one hand, everything takes place live and on the other hand, you have to listen to hear everything. It’s hard to do on TV at night.
Between quality and quantity
The quality of the themes is a grab bag at Clubhouse. There are good, exciting and excellent discussions, but also drivel and bullshit bingo. The problem at the moment is: you can’t tell the quality of a discussion from the room, you can only judge by the hosts, the moderators. This raises the exciting question of sustainability: once you have heard a topic or thesis from a host, you don’t want to hear it X times again. Also that hosts have something (good) to say about every topic should be finite.
The multitude of rooms on all kinds of topics can lead to room hopping: One topic for a minute here, another topic for a minute there. Keeping the attention span high in a room is appropriately challenging for the hosts. On the other hand, since Clubhouse requires virtually no preparation, interesting discussions can arise quickly and easily.
“Keeping the attention span high in a room is appropriately challenging for the hosts.”
For hosts or all those who have the floor, the supposedly intimate atmosphere also has its pitfalls. Thuringia’s Prime Minister Ramelow had to experience this at the weekend. In the chat, Ramelow revealed that he sometimes plays “Candy Crush” during the federal-state consultations and called the Chancellor Merkelchen. Even though Clubhouse prohibits quoting in their T&Cs, it didn’t take long for that to make the rounds.
Conclusion
Clubhouse is currently a network with an elitist touch and many unanswered questions. How does Clubhouse become more diverse in the long term? How can you avoid Hatespeech when everything is live? How can you visualize the quality of the rooms? How to avoid cannibalization effects? After all, if someone speaks for free at Clubhouse, why pay money to see the same live on stage? How do you manage to preserve clubhouse talks? How do you not make the same mistakes as at many events that are very dominated by male speakers and where diversity generally does not play a role? How can companies really get involved in a meaningful way?
This comment should not be misunderstood, because despite critical questions, Clubhouse has diverse and qualitative discussions and women who know how to assert themselves. If you find the right rooms with good hosts or moderators, you can follow high-quality discussions and sometimes even participate in them yourself. On the other hand, there is a hype that is unparalleled and the question must be allowed whether the hype is justified. People who do self-marketing or work as evangelists for a company certainly have a clear answer. For them, Clubhouse is the best platform. However, Clubhouse is not reaching the broad masses outside the bubble at the moment.
We at Payment & Banking will also continue to try out Clubhouse and consider how we can link Clubhouse to our events, podcast or articles. A few things, like debriefing individual articles, we’re trying out right now. We also need to keep reminding ourselves of the issue of diversity in order to set a good example. But even if you want to join Clubhouse: We have seen many networks come and go and the line between long-term relevance and short flash in the pan has rarely been as narrow as with Clubhouse.
