Clubhouse—the modern day party line. Learnings, Insights, & Drama.

You would think talking to a bunch of randos on the phone at the same time would be a foreign concept but if you grew up with a landline and had access to a special number, you’ve likely already experienced this auditory chatroom phenomenon through partylines.

Growing up in LA, I remember being exposed to partylines like The Loup, a teen telephone network that operated in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Phoenix where local teens would call to make friends and trade raunchy voice-mail messages—aka the place to do hoodrat shit with your friends. These partylines served as a fun outlet for those sheltering-in-place long before a pandemic and supposedly played a huge part in 1980’s New York preventing the spread of AIDS by serving as an alternative way to practice safe sex. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I can’t help but think Clubhouse as a nostalgic form of communication Gen X and Gen Y are already quite familiar with despite it being the new social app on the block.

With my party popper badge still on 🎉 I wanted to drop some gems with my early Clubhouse learnings, insights, and drama experienced as a newbie on the platform. You might find the tips below helpful if you haven’t received a rundown tour from another CH member.

A thorough profile is key 🔑

The rule of thumb apparently seems to be to front-load all your accolades and prestigious titles to get folks to scroll and learn more about you. With almost too much freedom in profile length, CH users have gotten creative by bedazzling their bios with emojis for scannability and even proudly sharing their cashapp, paypal, and venmo handles for reasons you might not expect…

Pay to speak? 💸

You might come across moderators requesting money to give you an opportunity to join them on stage to be allowed to speak—although common, it’s typically frowned upon. So save your money, the stage will be yours someday soon.

Cash / Follows for gems 💎

You may find yourself in a situation where you’re on stage, dropping knowledge bombs on errybody and making it rain mindblowing gems, it’s apparently normal for someone to want to tip you—yes actually tip you in cash—for sharing your insights and wanting to show you support, hence, the cashapp, paypals, and venmos readily available in bios. I’ve witnessed it during heated debates or deep introspective chats; some folks have even offered paid speaking engagement opportunities. This is totally an unscratched opportunity Clubhouse has yet to explore.

Makeshift applause reaction 👏🏼

What I initially thought of as a buggy interface turned out to be a makeshift applause reaction. With the inability to visually react to what someone said and as a way to reduce noise in these auditory chatrooms, Clubhouse users have established an interesting way to visually communicate and show support to speakers by rapidly turning on and off their mic while they’re on stage whilst not adding additional background noise. Again, another feature opportunity that may show up on the CH roadmap sooner or later if they care about their users.

DMs are open…on another platforms 💌

With the lack of direct messaging within the app, users simultaneously use Twitter and Instagram while on Clubhouse. That’s apparently where these connections are made official—if someone says, “My DMs are open” folks will typically DM them with “CH” or “Clubhouse” and follow each other on these social platforms as well. With only a few days under my belt, the connections I’ve already made are truly authentic and have continued off the CH platform. We insta-official y’all. ✔️

How to speak 🗣

This platform is quite interesting because it caters to two very different audiences—it allows those with the gift of gab to shine but also serves to those who just enjoy listening to podcast-like conversations. What I’ve noticed instantly is how there’s a certain demeanor in how people communicate when given the opportunity to speak on stage...

“Hello, this is So-and-so, second row next to Blah-blah-blah with a description of their profile photo just wanted to say…”

With such a subtle visual affordance—that likely doesn’t reach WCAG contrast ratio guidelines—given to a person as they speak it has become the norm to state your name and image description in crowded rooms to further identify yourself to those potentially wanting to connect and actively scanning the room to looking to follow.

People get wordy. People get boring. Don’t be like those people. 🙄
Keep it short, be succinct. Be inclusive. Reset the room.

“Resetting the room” for inclusion

With the constant influx of folks joining and coming in and out of rooms, it’s become a common courtesy to recap what y’all are talking about for folks just joining in but also to keep folks engaged because there’s always that one person that goes off on a tangent and enjoys hearing themselves talk despite their story not being relevant to anything at all.

Just like IRL, there’s other ways you can be inclusive when speaking other than reiterating the topic. You can…

• Not be an asshole who talks over people
• Make sure folks on stage have a chance to speak
• Be an ally and call on someone who hasn’t had a chance to speak
• Be a listener—get off the stage, we know you’re multi-tasking.

Last but not least, what’s Clubhouse without a little bit of… spice?

There’s apparently a shit ton of drama on this platform. Misplaced aggression, alliances, cancel culture and high profile people trying to mask their racism. I’m still watching the aftermath unfold after reports and bans going on so stay tuned but all I can say is follow and surround yourself with the vibe you want because it’s too easy to get involved in trash conversations with folks who like to hear themselves talk.

Hopefully these early insights make the Clubhouse experience less of a mystery to you. For those from LA, it’s like staying up really late at night listening to Loveline with Dr. Drew — except instead of Dr. Drew it might be a comedian talking to person who gave a TED talk once, alongside a social media influencer with a massive following on TikTok and you can potentially join in on the convo as well. Again, you’re probably already natural if you grow up chatting away on a landline anyway.

P.S. If you see me in da club ~ don’t be a stranger ~ let’s connect!