Clubhouse II: The Boogaloo

This is going to be a two-parter, the next post will be on the larger societal implications of  'all of this', where I went wrong with my predictions, and my updated predictions, and how we can stop hell from breaking lose, because it is going to, very very soon. It's going to be a mess people, there's no other way to put it. But that's for later. Here's a more conventional moral outrage post. It's quite restrained actually, don't worry.

So because I was feeling really bored and wanted to see what YKD's group was up to, I rejoined Clubhouse for a bit more than 40 hours, and checked what was up. And mostly it's alright. Lots of largish groups with men just talking politics and the stock market, young men and women talking each other to sleep, general politicking, general social activism, and gossip etcetera. Lots, lots and lots lots lots of dating shows, where they try connecting people with each other. And some rather large and very popular uhh there's no way around it...audio-porn group, with amateur random people performing in there. You'd be surprised at the amount of female participation in those, because well..it's Nepal, I'd have thought, but I guess not everybody's got the upper-middle class gendered expectations I came ingrained with. In another life I'd have complained about those shows etcetera, but not anymore. Seems fine, whatever. People chose to go online, to this app, into a group, talk and listen. Nobody's putting a gun on anybody. There's multiple conscious steps you have to make on your own accord before you're exposed to the smut, and if that's what you choose, all the power to you.

Most groups are friendly and fine. But larger ones are really...a reflection...of...Nepali society. In...all the ways possible. As in, not in a good way. I went to Clubhouse to sample the ongoings of that, I guess, in a less intense manner, but oh boy, in a matter of a single day I realized there's no way to escape everything that is shitty and awful about the culture. As in, men getting into fights in groups, five minutes into the conversation, massive egos, dirty name calling in the middle of otherwise serious conversations, threats, conscious undermining, etcetera. So much underhanded techniques, I'm kinda' grossed out. Not that it was a surprise, it's just that I figured it'd take me much longer to encounter those, than say four hours of listening to random people talk.

So yeah, I'm off off Clubhouse, yet again. I've not mentioned my biggest concern with the application, the astroturfing, because I'm saving it for the next post. Here's what I'll say though. It's a lot of time commitment, because it's synchronous, you need to be paying attention, and you can't just 'come back'. It's fine for when people are in lockdowns and don't have anything better to do, but it'd take some verrry committed souls to keep coming back to the app and doing the same conversations on a regular basis. Muchos respectos for those amigos.