From the start, there were signs that Clubhouse was speed-running the platform life cycle
The 11-month-old invitation-only social audio app, Clubhouse, is compelling. It also has some very grown-up problems. Image: Filippo Fontana/The New York Times
(The Shift)
A few nights ago, after my weekly trip to the grocery store, I sat in my car glued to Clubhouse, the invitation-only social audio app.
While my ice cream thawed in the trunk, I dropped in on a room where Tom Green, the former MTV shock comedian and star of “Freddy Got Fingered,” was debating the ethics of artificial intelligence with a group of computer scientists and Deadmau5, the famous Canadian DJ.
When that was over, I headed to a room called NYU Girls Roasting Tech Guys. There, I listened to college students playing a dating game in which contestants were given 30 seconds of stage time to try to seduce someone else in the audience.
And after a few rounds of that, I joined a room called the Cotton Club, in which users changed their avatars to black-and-white portraits and pretended to be patrons of a 1920s-style speak-easy, complete with jazz soundtrack.
©2019 New York Times News Service