Clubhouse is ruining my sleep

Well apparently just a few hours ago the clubhouse Asian servers crashed because of a huge spike in activity from Taiwan. Some Taiwanese celebrities got on and started singing and a bunch of people flooded the room. I don’t know anything beyond that. I didn’t witness it, just heard from others after the fact. :man_shrugging:

Alright I’m seeing Taiwanese rooms all over the place now. There’s been a “Taiwan Talks” room for the past 8 hours or so…I popped in on a few different occasions today. Right now almost 200 people. The chat is literally just about anything regarding Taiwan, and it’s mostly Taiwanese people all over the world. Most of the people actually in Taiwan have dropped off at this point since it is middle of the night but this feels like forumosa except with audio instead of text, real rather than anonymous people, and a distinct lack of dry humor.

I’m still not sure how much this app will fit my life, there are some pros and cons.
Cons:

  1. I must absorb an hour’s worth of spoken content in real time, with no guarantee that it will have been “worth it”. On the other hand, with text I can absorb the same content in minutes, and after a few paragraphs, or by skimming to the end, decide if it’s content that interests me.
  2. It’s ephemeral. I could contribute 300 hours of content, but would have nothing to show for it. 300 hours of content creation on forums, FB, YouTube, Instagram, etc. at least shows you the fruits of your labours, if any. In this sense it’s like Snapchat (or rather what I understand Snapchat to be like). Whatever you say is heard, briefly, then disappears into the ether.

Pros:

  1. Clubhouse encourages real names. I think that’s great, because years of experience with forums have made me a firm believer that anonymity is the devil. Authenticity = credibility
  2. Their onboarding/nomination process is brilliant. I hope they don’t change it.
  3. The format allows for spontaneity. That can be a breath of fresh air.
  4. Real voices makes for more polite / empathetic interaction. I hear less snark in Clubhouse than I read in online groups.

Anyway, I’m still giving it a whirl. Feel free to connect with me at Anthony van Dyck @avdtaipei. And I’ve scheduled a chat for Sunday evening:

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Can this forum evolve into Clubhouse?

impossible. Clubhouse is more likely to devolve into forumosa, though I don’t think it will reach that point.

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I think your breakdown is on point. Just a couple comments:

Cons #2 - if you’re really in this for content creation and think you’re at the stage where it matters, then you can absolutely record the rooms that you run in clubhouse. This was a modification they made to TOS at some point late last year…you just have to make sure everyone who speaks is aware that you are recording and you should include “RECORDING” in your room title. There are a number of podcasts I’ve come across that record or livestream and synchronize with a clubhouse room.

Pros #4 - I think you’ve vastly understated this. But yes, it is true.

I’d also add one more con, although it can be spun as a pro. The fact that this app is audio/speaking based means that it really caters to well-spoken speakers. And is disadvantageous to those who have difficulty speaking. On the other hand, this could be a pro since almost all social media and content platforms benefit people who can write/script/perform well but not necessarily people who just know how to have conversation and verbal communication.

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Like I didn’t say before…

ancient aliens I'm not saying there's an archive somewhere

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So what is it? chat rooms with actual audio chatting instead of typing?

But they promise!

app*.

rm -f app*.* :japanese_goblin:

:joy:

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Never mind interception. Anyone who participates can make a recording. Of course, this is true in “real life” anyway, but speaking directly into a microphone and transmitting it to hundreds of people you don’t know makes the eavesdropper’s job easier. Just sayin’.

will you be naked?

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And oiled! :kissing_heart:

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Taiwan seems to think it’s an acronym. No word on what they think it stands for, though.

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So… allegedly there’s been these “shoot your shot” rooms where it’s literally a live dating show where anyone can go up and, well, shoot their shot.

Would you do it?

I have spent a few minutes watching these on several different occasions. I get particularly intrigued since they often have some kind of demographic differentiator to them*, which makes it interesting to observe. They’ve usually been very light-hearted and yeah, sure I would do it if I were single. There’s a lot of shooting your shot avenues that have popped up in the past decade that would have made my life far more interesting probably…if I were single lol.

Likely nobody cares lol, but I think my overall usage is around 2 hours a day now, and it is 75% in the Taiwan Talks room. I’m one of the rotating mods in there, come in and say hi. But like I said I’m only in the TT room about 1.5 a day. Some of my fellow mods have to do 5-10/day lol. We’re at 2.5 weeks open 24/7

*a mostly white shoot your shot room, a black one, an Asian American one, and one that was predominantly Korean. Apparently there were a few Korean celebrities in there. All had very different styles, just like any rooms on CH.

It’s an almost daily fight for me with my colleagues here trying to get them to stop using APP. Their usual comeback is: but I saw it on TV, they use it on the news, it must be correct!