Member-only story
What Happened to Clubhouse?
Six months ago, it was worth $4 billion. Now it’s #60 in the App Store’s ‘social networking’ category right behind Chispa, Skout, and Hit on Me!
Like many old people desperate to stay relevant, I made a Millennial friend. Only I hit the Millennial jackpot, which is the kind of jackpot that, instead of money, spits out excuses for why it doesn’t make enough money.
So when Igor Hiller — who was an Instagram comedy star, acted in the show Dear White People, started a podcast, and is now a life coach — told me early this year that we needed to join Clubhouse right away so we could monetize our influence there, I did it.
We were the lucky early adopters, joining right after the live, audio-only social media app was seeded to the music and tech industries. Other people were paying up to $77 for the free invites we got. It was so elite that, in a demographically genius move the Soho House would envy, Clubhouse was only available on the iPhone.
We’d have access to hundreds of simultaneous rooms of live chat, each a cross between a TED talk and a call-in radio show. Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Tiffany Haddish, Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Drake, and Jack Dorsey were hosting rooms, talking to randos. We, Igor said, could be the Clubhouse…
