We have lived through countless eras of short-lived social media apps. Remember when everyone was obsessed with FaceApp before they realised they might be stealing your data? Or when Houseparty was the place to be during the first iteration of lockdown? These things come and go, and so many assumed Clubhouse — the new social media platform designed to allow users to converse with each other (vocalising the group chat, let’s say) — would suffer the same fate. But here we are, mere months after its beta launch, seeing rumours that they’ve already clocked up as many as eight million new downloads.
The app, which is still in its pre-launch stage and requires an invite to join, has been a word-of-mouth go-to location according to the entirety of Twitter; the source of everything from local beef to truly wild meetings of celebrity minds — Elon Musk, Oprah, Drake and Tom Hanks’ problematic son Chet Hanks are all members on there.
Though Clubhouse itself hasn’t released any formal data, mobile analytical company App Annie have made a strong estimate that roughly eight million people have downloaded the app, with the true figure potentially even being as high as 10 million. In fact, they estimate that in the first two weeks of February, more than five million people tried to join the app, which still has a fairly lengthy waiting list to actually get access to it. The last figures offered directly by its CEO Paul Davidson were revealed at a virtual town hall in early January, when he reported that they had two million active users.
Pair that exponential growth with the fact the app’s value skyrocketed from $100 million in December 2020 to $1 billion in January 2021, and you get the impression Clubhouse is well on its way to becoming a key player in the social media game. After all, we’ve not really had anything like it. While TikTok encourages inane scrolling and Twitter usually results in catfights, there’s something discourse-shifting about the idea of real-time conversation and debate; so simply it’s bizarre no one has tried it before.
So how do you join the party? You can find out how to do so here, or sit tight waiting for the app to get its official launch later this year. The pressure is high; let’s see if its founders can pull through.