Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Celebrities

Opinion / Who are the celebrities and billionaires flocking to Clubhouse? After Elon Musk talked aliens on the new social voice , more appearances followed, including the cast of Bling Empire and Shark Tank – here’s why you should join in

STORYDerek Ting
Why are celebrities and billionaires flocking to new social voice app Clubhouse? Photos: TNS, AFP, @kevin.kreider/Instagram, @andrewgray/Instagram
Why are celebrities and billionaires flocking to new social voice app Clubhouse? Photos: TNS, AFP, @kevin.kreider/Instagram, @andrewgray/Instagram
Technology

  • Everyone from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to Malcolm Gladwell are hosting rooms on new social voice app Clubhouse
  • Is it only a matter of time before we see the likes of BTS take advantage of the app to please fans?

There are amazing things happening in the new social media voice app Clubhouse. Unless you’ve tried it, I can only describe it as a new form of radio, with “clubs” and “rooms” where users can engage with the hosts.

On Clubhouse, just like on Instagram, you can follow people you like, and they can follow you back. You can talk and converse on any subject (if hosts bring you to the “stage”) or just listen in. 

So why exactly is the app so exciting?

Star quality

Advertisement
Elon Musk walked into Clubhouse recently and kicked off a flurry of interest in the app. Photo: @elonofficiall/Instagram
Elon Musk walked into Clubhouse recently and kicked off a flurry of interest in the app. Photo: @elonofficiall/Instagram
The turning point for the app was when billionaire Elon Musk “walked” into Clubhouse in late January to talk about aliens and humans living on Mars, among other things. Users flocked to his room and it reached capacity – rooms have a maximum capacity of 5,000 – causing glitches on the platform. But within 10 minutes overflow rooms had popped up that started to fill with Musk’s voice too. The app officially became a huge deal.
The next day, Mark Zuckerberg walks in and starts talking about AR and VR, right while I was trying to listen to Guy Kawasaki, the Apple evangelist and now Canva evangelist. Kawasaki’s room kept crashing like a Windows 95 computer and failed to get off the ground because Zuckerberg was ordering bottles of Dom or something, to the extent that Guy couldn’t preach his wisdom.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stopped into Clubhouse to chat about AR and VR. Photo: Getty Images
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stopped into Clubhouse to chat about AR and VR. Photo: Getty Images

Tech issues aside, the creativity on Clubhouse is through the roof, with excellent entertainment such as a trivia show produced by a user called The Rundown in which Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump impersonators slap the buzzer if they know the answers to pop culture questions posed by the character Jigsaw from the horror movie Saw. Yes, really.

Even the cast of Bling Empire made an appearance over the weekend talking about their new reality show on Netflix; and American actor Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii 5-0, Lost) led a tough conversation about hate crime as other celebrities and activists came on to support him.

A screenshot of Malcolm Gladwell’s chat about author Adam Grant. Photo: Handout
A screenshot of Malcolm Gladwell’s chat about author Adam Grant. Photo: Handout

One of the world’s greatest minds, Malcolm Gladwell, was also on recently, speaking about Adam Grant’s new book Think Again, and how it helps people to consider new perspectives.