Clubhouse Stage Squatters Add More Value Than Speakers — Thought for Your Penny
I unlocked the Giles Steinberg achievement this weekend. Saturday night, I pulled up into a Facial Recognition Comedy room to laugh and reflect on a weekend full of difficult conversations. I fell asleep at some point in the early morning listening to some impromptu drunken musical performances.
When I woke up Sunday morning, the room was still going, and I was the mod in the top left corner. Two people were discussing some serious topic, and it took me a few minutes to gather my wits and understand what was happening.
Apparently, I stayed in the room as a moderator completely silent for hours as the room went on without me. It was surreal, like being Bernie in Weekend at Bernie’s, and I briefly wondered what it would feel like to wake up in the middle of an awards ceremony held in your honor with no idea what led to it.
Trying to stay silent as I got out of bed, I washed my face and put on some clothes. Inevitably, I flashed my mic accidentally while picking up my iPhone and was now on a hot mic in a room full of 100 people I never met. It was an interesting experience.
I’m not entirely sure if I should be ashamed of falling asleep in public (or the fact I didn’t gain any followers from it). Or maybe I should feel like I gained enough XP to level up my Clubhouse reputation. Although these are just inconsequential personal problems in the view of this week’s historic occasion.
Both the Clubhouse community and staff are growing this year.
And growing pains are to be expected when building something new. Everyone’s feeling our way through a new culture where everyone has their own ideas of what it could and should be. I’ve only been on this platform for two months, and I’m already becoming one of the platform’s expert users.
I’m complete alone in that too. Everyone who was here before me left, and it’s an odd community feeling that still has toxic vibes.
Some people are taking this early adopter lead time to build something, even if we don’t know exactly what we’re creating yet. All we know is that by focusing on productive conversations and solutions, we can build an audience and figure it out.
Most of those people got exhausted and left because the app’s community was too toxic and a waste of time, money, and resources.
But some people are focused on tearing things down. They prefer to silence others, and blocking, reporting, and suspensions came to a head over the weekend when Clubhouse staff finally stepped into our rooms to talk to us.
Democratizing Customer Service
Kris Ruby is no stranger to controversy. As the head of the Republicans & Conservatives club, she’s often the target of social media vitriol. It doesn’t matter what she does, there are people on both sides of the fence who will feel some type of way about it. This weekend, she was again the subject of multiple spin off rooms over a historic Clubhouse moment.
I already broke down what happened to Ruby last week when she was suspended. But it didn’t take long for Clubhouse to admit it made an error and reinstate her.
Ruby’s suspension kicked off a chain of events I don’t think anyone at Clubhouse was truly prepared for. Two employees spent long hours directly in rooms to address community issues well into the morning hours. The townhall is always recommended listening, but it’s a sanitized monologue between internal staff with very little audience interaction.
Friday night marked the first time in history that Clubhouse staff jumped into a room to address community issues like suspensions and weaponized blocking. I don’t say that it’s a historic moment lightly, and I do appreciate everyone’s time who was in the various rooms. After two days of watching the aftermath and reflecting on everything I heard, I have a few suggestions.
But before we get into that, let’s review the events that unfolded from Friday through Sunday. We’ll then unpack what it could mean for the Clubhouse community and whether it was an overall positive or negative experience in my view.
The Weekend’s Best Convo
Virtual Dinner Party — As the wife of one of a16z’s founders, it’s no surprise Felicia Horowitz has a commanding presence on the app. But she does earn her place near the top by providing consistently great conversations every Saturday. Horowitz has solid connections and an open mind to welcome talented people from all walks of life for intellectual discussion. But even she couldn’t get a crowd’s attention for the 984097089247398120948109357928479810938120935th Bitcoin room on Clubhouse. Peak attendance of around 3,000 at the start cut in half as soon as it was clear the laser eyes took over…by Felicia’s Virtual Dinner Party
Top 10 Gaming Clubs
Clubhouse Stats consistently delivers the best daily statistics of the most populated rooms. Follow the club on both Clubhouse and Twitter to keep up with the top clubs in a variety of categories.
Today, we’re highlighting CH Stats on Gaming. Numbers given are totals of members and followers.
- Tech Talks — 391k
- Talk Nerdy to Me — 189k
- Games Club — 34.2k
- Esports — 29.9k
- Persian Game Club — 11.6k
- Hypegeek — 10.2k
- Twitch Streamer Connection — 10.1k
- Chess Club — 7.9k
- Content Creators & Streamers — 7.8k
- The Open Metaverse — 7.8k
10 Convos to Attend Today
Carole Baskin Is Here All You Clouts and Kittens 10:00 AM PDT — Welcome Tiger King’s Carole Baskin to the Bitclout and Clubhouse communities. If you’re not yet familiar with Bitclout, it’s a blockchain-based Twitter that’s spawning a bunch of creator coins and controversy. People must have really low self esteem to base their own worth on the value of their creator coin (which is a token, not a coin). It’s all meaningless and pathetic. Buy ClubhouseConvos tokens on Bitclout if you agree, so I can at least outpace $DOGE…by Bitclout Users
Pop Culture Pop Up 3:00 PM PDT — Pop culture isn’t easy to keep up with, especially when you have a Clubhouse addiction. How can you both watch whatever’s screening and listen to whatever rooms are in the hallway? Much like an audiobook adaptation of a book’s CliffsNotes, this room regularly breaks down all the pop culture news you need to know in 30 minutes or more…by Pop Style TV Club
College Admissions Scandals 4:00 PM PDT — Drew Morisey is one of the beautiful minds of Clubhouse. He’s a rapper, YouTuber, influencer, and deep thinker who works hard to consistently curate thought-provoking conversations. In this discussion, Morisey recruits Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Golden about the college admissions scandal and ongoing education inequities…by A Candid World
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Originally published at http://thoughtforyourpenny.com on May 30, 2021.