NOTEBOOK – ONE GOOD READ: Clubhouse, an invite-only audio app popular among the tech set, is already generating opportunity for misogyny and racism, users say
KATE HAYDEN Feb 9, 2021 | 4:48 pm
1 min read time
231 wordsAll Latest News, Arts and Culture, Business Record Insider, The Insider NotebookAbout a month after I was kindly invited to join the beta app Clubhouse, I have not entirely figured out how I want to use it yet. (Somebody online described it as Medium for the podcast-curious, and I think that is accurate.) The app’s beta form is iPhone-only, and the vibe is similar to LinkedIn, or maybe how conferences used to feel in the Before Pandemic times — mostly a networking function. It’s also mostly used by the tech-and-creative adjacent set as far as I can see, or maybe that’s just based on who I’ve followed. Yet as the Lily reports, Black women trying out Clubhouse report the invitation-only mindset is already working against them in audience participation chatrooms: “[Dionne Mahaffey] observed rooms where only men were invited to speak from the audience, regardless of their level of professional experience. In one room, a man refused to let her introduce herself and challenged the claims in her bio, Mahaffey said. ‘He took the whole time to tear me down in a room with hundreds of people,’ she continued. ‘When I [listed] my credentials and the projects I was involved with, he demoted me to the audience. I am not the type of person that brags, but he pushed a button.’” This should be a timely reminder — as Clubhouse grows, let’s ensure the floor is open for everyone to be heard.