+ +`https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/753114804617932801` + +## Assumptions at bat + +1. For the vast majority of mainstream social users, no amount of [insert vague overused marketing jargon noun] will *ever* result in a substantial accumulation of money/"influence" (which seems to be the diluted zag of "POWER" of the moment.) Those interested in learning about "marketing" should know that no authority on the subject would ever tell you to *start* with Twitter - this I can say with certainty. +2. Though Twitter was designed upon certain frameworks with certain rules which form quantifiable formulas where they are dependent upon a user's choices/methodology to produce results which we *have*, indeed, become more adept at predicting with study over time, it was *not* created as a *game to be won*. Perhaps more importantly, the "prize" of "winning" in the sense held by those who resist this assumption (notoriety, "influence," relevance) has continued to prove ultimately worthless (or worse) time and time again throughout the very short history of the cultural element as it exists today. +3. If both 1 and 2 pass scrutiny, the only remaining reasonable prerogatives in one’s social media use is to engage with _both_ strangers and friends in a manner which generally **adds value to the lives of all involved**. +4. 3 is not only _possible_ - it is easily _reproducible_. Most of my evidence is centered around my own experiences, but I believe - if I took the time - I would be able to find infinitely many publicly-facing examples. +5. Though I am going to use my own methods to demonstrate 4, **neither my ideas nor my behavior are the only means of interacting positively on social media**. + +Over the past few months, I've started a few Posts for this blog regarding Twitter, its properties, and its recent feature addition frenzy which I'll probably never finish. I finished the first and narrowest one - the aforelinked Tweetbot 6 review - but the (debatably) most important one - highlighting how irresponsibly and distastefully [Twitter butchered Periscope and built Spaces atop its technology](https://github.com/extratone/bilge/issues/79) - would make less and less sense as time goes on. I definitely got caught up in the "death" of the live video streaming service, fueled by my now quite old desire to celebrate it[^1], which I will hopefully accomplish *eventually* in a very sentimental essay. If I can successfully link them editorially, the subject encompassing Spaces - social audio's "moment" - would also include mention of RSS, "Podcasting" (the term describing the medium,) Spotify, and Clubhouse, inevitably. Instead of counting on my future self entirely, however, I'm going to begin by discussing that last one. + + + +## The (‽‽‽th) Social Audio Renaissance + +Exactly one month ago, I finally [broke into Clubhouse](https://www.joinclubhouse.com/@davidblue) thanks to a random kind stranger on Twitter who preferred not to be named. April 25th was the first time I set eyes on the app - though I could've (and usually would've) looked up screenshots and/or browsed the litter of how tos available, I did not. By this time, I'd accumulated quite a bit of experience with Twitter Spaces - derided universally by tech media as a "Clubhouse clone" - and therefore assumed the original would be "better," at least in pure feature terms. What I found, however, was even *less* evidence that anyone building Clubhouse has been/is/intends to be a regular Clubhouse user. Spaces, at least, included five emoji reacts for listeners from the beginning: 💯✊✌️👋😂. Clubhouse's exclusive means of Listener-Host interaction is Hand Raising, which is essentially requesting to speak, even though the hand waving emoji is [*literally featured in their logo*](https://joinclubhouse.com/press). (The fact that neither have thought to add 🙌 is absolutely inexcusable/inexplicable.) + +I do not understand the mentality of Twitter users who behave as if it is an intraweb competition and/or it has value in and of itself.
— ※ David Blue ※ (@NeoYokel) July 13, 2016
+ +`https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1344473573226762241` + +In case you weren't aware, I appear to enjoy trying out new social services. My password manager is full of literally thousands of credentials for social media apps/services/startups - most of which have undoubtedly collapsed or been absorbed by a larger entity. Since generating said credentials has become such an easy process, especially, I tend to immediately sign up for an account on just about every one I hear about. (I even have [a Parler profile](https://parler.com/#/user/Extratone) I cannot bear to actually look at.) Generally, I sign up, follow anyone I know from elsewhere if given an account-bridging option, poke around enough to figure out whether or not the service in question could add something to my online existence, and end up leaving for good. Most of these services are *not* unique in any way, to a perplexing degree. A few - like Pinterest - gain success separately as I give up on trying to integrate them into my life. The miniscule remaining percentage, though, end up becoming a part of my daily life. The most *recent* of these dates back to April 2017, when I first discovered [Mastodon](https://bilge.world/eugen-rochko-interview). + +so clubhouse is #14 on the app store, but only to reserve one’s username. nice. hype.
— ※ David Blue ※ (@NeoYokel) December 31, 2020
+ +`https://twitter.com/0kbps/status/1393792313936146433` + +### The Feature Story + +"Social Audio" did not begin with Clubhouse. Anchor originally launched as a "[public radio](http://web.archive.org/web/20160209224846/https://anchor.fm/about)" app, believe it or not. *Extratone*'s channel was actually the [first to be featured](https://www.patreon.com/posts/archived-our-day-11592398) in their Music section, once upon a time. Frankly, that happening was the most positive outcome of my social media service accumulation habit. More recently, [Stereo](https://stereo.com/davidblue) launched, describing themselves as "[the premier LIVE broadcast social platform that enables people to have and discover real conversations in real time](https://stereo.com/about)." Bizarrely, the most legitimate media coverage I could find of Stereo was [from *Glamour UK*](https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/stereo-app), and its author definitely spent less than a day actually using the service. Adam Corolla remains #1 on its earnings leaderboard and its [conversation export feature](https://youtu.be/0GfGLUbc6fw) is a personal favorite. The [Big *WIRED* feature on the subject](https://www.wired.com/story/the-future-of-social-media-is-all-talk) from December of last year does not mention Stereo but lists three other "alternatives:" [Wavve](https://wavve.co/), [Riffr](https://riffr.com/), and [Spoon](https://www.spooncast.net/). (None of which are actually competitors/alternatives. Sorry, Arielle.) + +tried joining a twitter space for the first time ever. this shits pretty cool enjoying it a Lot pic.twitter.com/GbJIN8XPc0
— (@0kbps) May 16, 2021
— ※ David Blue ※ (@NeoYokel) May 2, 2021+ +`https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1388936080645312520` + +I probably shouldn't proclaim to be an authority on social audio, but I am definitely a veteran. From that context, I must say that Clubhouse is horribly unoriginal - not only in the sense that "successful" business implementations of others', previous ideas tend to be diluted versions of the original, but almost pitifully so. I will commend the app's developers on their somewhat-thorough release notes (even though they can be viewed only when first opening the app after an update instead of *in the designated space on the App Store*,) but the extent of *linkable* Clubhouse documentation amounts to [eight blog posts](https://joinclubhouse.com/blog) and a "[Community Guidelines](https://www.notion.so/Community-Guidelines-461a6860abda41649e17c34dc1dd4b5f)" Notion page. Though I've only been a user for one month, I wonder what the fuck they've been doing since launch, given how sparsely-featured the app is at this moment. There are Notifications, Profiles, and Clubs - the latter of which cannot be created until a user surpasses an unknown threshold of renown(?) on the app. Competent calendar integration may be the service's singular innovation, though support for Outlook has yet to be added. The Big Issue, though, is finding a "talk" to attend that will not drive you utterly insane... + + + +### The Grand Delusion + +I wrote the assumptions at the beginning of this Post in a single go after [a particularly icky Sunday Clubhouse experience](https://twitter.com/neoyokel/status/1388930367671910404) out of a deep concern that'd been growing since first exploring the app. The content I've found there is not at all what I expected, to be honest. I've found it almost entirely indecipherable, which makes critique beyond [just fucking screaming](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1388936080645312520) difficult. *The New Yorker*'s Anna Wiener did a much better job than I could realistically manage in "[Clubhouse Feels like a Party](https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/in-the-clubhouse):" + +> There was something pleasant about meandering from conversation to conversation, as if I had walked into my own home to find a conference in full swing. But I also wondered, Why did I let all of these people into my house? +> +> ... +> +> It is hard to shake the feeling that everyone on Clubhouse is selling something: a company, a workshop, a show, a book, a brand. + +More recently, her publication's nemesis declared "[The Clubhouse Party is Over](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/04/the-clubhouse-party-is-over)," but I wouldn't know. None of my friends have ever Tweeted a Clubhouse link (determinable via [this Twitter search](https://twitter.com/search?q=%22joinclubhouse%22&src=typed_query&f=live&pf=on).) Very few of the tech industry celebrities I follow have, either - pretty much just [Chris Messina](https://twitter.com/chrismessina) and [Jason Calacanis](https://twitter.com/Jason). This is noteworthy because I believe [my list of followed accounts on Twitter](https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/following) to be particularly diverse. I actively followed accounts across my various interests from ages 15-25 (when I hit my [follow limit](https://bit.ly/dbfollow)) and basically *never unfollowed anyone*. I would imagine there are several accounts within that list which I would be ashamed to be associated with, now, and yet none have shared a Clubhouse link. Reading any further into this observation would require actual data journalism, which I'll leave to the pros. It does prompt the question, though: if nobody I've ever known or been interested in on Twitter is using Clubhouse, *who* in fuck *is*? + +~~A reprieve: I have at least one positive answer for you. At some point, I stumbled in a room hosted within a Club called "[No Thoughts, Head Empty](https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/no-thoughts-head-em)," which - as far as I can tell - is mostly made up of young professional/academic individuals of distinctly *non*-Judeochristian origin, if that makes sense. That's about as specific a label as I am comfortable with applying to them as a whole~~ apart from their genuine, bountiful enthusiasm for doge. They have indulged my questions and anecdotes on several occasions and have become the singular reason Clubhouse is still installed on my handset. + +Frankly, I do not understand the business incentive behind the massive duplication of other software/services defining featuresets of late. I see that Instagram stories have eclipsed Snapchat's in terms of [sheer user count](https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/28/technology/instagram-stories-users/index.html), but I do not understand why its leaders would choose to fuck their legacy by such blatant idea theft, much less why [Twitter](https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/introducing-fleets-new-way-to-join-the-conversation.html), [Facebook](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/facebook-launches-stories-in-the-main-facebook-app), [Patreon](https://blog.patreon.com/lens/) and even fucking [LinkedIn](https://www.inputmag.com/culture/nobody-wants-stories-on-their-linkedin-feed) have implemented nearly-identical featuresets. Though I know Ben Thompson's word on these matters should be easily digestible, I haven't been able to actually take a bite. For the End User, especially, I cannot even begin to conceive of what the leaders behind these decisions imagine the day-to-day experience of the average social media user looks like in the near future. *How many apps* am I going to cycle through to get a single story-type piece of content satisfactorily shared? Personally, I currently use three, and sharing a single bit individually across all of them one-by-one (since the current state of APIs is not conducive to consumer-targeted mass-sharing tools) makes me feel utterly insane. + +My lack of understanding would be meaningless if it were not so widely shared among my peers - young, brilliant, multifaceted, and distinctly original creators who (in large part) make stuff on the internet full-time. *They* are who I'd actually plan ahead to hear from in a live broadcast setting like Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces, but Twitch seems to do just fine. For audio broadcasts, specifically, the *hip*, fresh sources which come to mind are all distinctly Open Web: [Datafruits.fm](https://datafruits.fm/), [Solarpunk.cool](https://solarpunk.cool/magic/computer/club/), [Poolside.fm](http://poolside.fm/), and my Mastodon friend [Vanta's stream](https://radio.schizoid.tech/). The potential of the term "social audio" is truly being explored by projects like [Rave.DJ](https://www.patreon.com/RaveDJ) - a homegrown, Patreon-funded service for sharing mixes/mashups. On a smaller scale, the sky is the limit for [Whyp.it](https://whyp.it/) as a pure audio playback/annotation tool for creators (as developed by Brad Varol, whom I [interviewed in March](https://lnns.co/ZSadwt3Hnfi).) + + + +Compared to these, most of Clubhouse's communities seem bleak at best. As I may or may not get around to arguing thoroughly about Twitter Spaces, these services' fundamental, near-complete disinterest in **discovery** of new voices and their subsequent servitude to only their most popular users should be extremely worrying for us all - including those who benefit most. + +## Fulfillment Analytics + +I am not a social scientist, data analyst of any kind, established media-facing academic, or even a real web developer. On social media, I am nothing more than an early adopting End User, but I'm beginning to wonder if you should start listening to me, considering the results produced thus far by those mentioned in various efforts to understand why the Social Web became what it is today. If my overwhelming astrological bent toward **precocity** holds any meaning \ No newline at end of file