Clubhouse: What’s the story?

You’re bored waiting for a Zoom meeting to start, so you get onto Clubhouse. As you scroll, a room named “No entry for misogynists” grabs your attention. Women from the Gulf are speaking about their experiences with male violence. Out of nowhere, film director and former MP Khaled Youssef enters the room, and the moderator invites him to the speakers’ panel. Things escalate quickly; people tell Youssef that his films don’t do anything for women, he says he’s done the most for women through his films, people say he did nothing about the women whose lives were destroyed by the leaked videos connected to him. The atmosphere is heated, statements and accusations flying about. You’re no longer bored. You’re ready for more. 

Later that day, you fill up the kettle to make some green tea to help you relax. While you wait, you put your headphones in and scroll through Clubhouse. You want to be able to sleep soon, so you avoid anything about politics. You find Andeel and follow him into a room where he is entertaining night owls. Five hours of laughter and jokes go by, and also reveal undoubtedly that Egypt isn’t in fact inherently conservative, that what they call “Egyptian family values” are not so integral a feature. Suddenly, a listener reports Andeel and Clubhouse closes his account. 

The live and direct engagement on Clubhouse makes it fertile ground for the unexpected. You sense it right from the beginning. You have the feeling that you’ve entered a place by mistake, an “oops, sorry, wrong room” kind of feeling. You find yourself suddenly in the middle of a meeting, a group voice call similar to our experiences with Zoom and other applications in the year of the pandemic. But you’re free of the expectation of attendance or participation. You can just be a silent, light visitor, having a look around. You’re also, of course, free of image. 

Eventually, you feel the intimacy of a social club. You know who you’re going to meet, but you’ll also be surprised by other groups and you’ll join their rooms. There’s a collectivity to the engagement that’s opposed to the individualism of Facebook and Instagram. 

Clubhouse is a culmination, a surpassing of different types of online content. It differs from a podcast by having direct engagement; it differs from Zoom and other meeting applications by being a social network. You know what your friends are doing and which rooms they’re in right now. It is instantaneous, removing the passage of time that breaks intimacy on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. There’s no waiting for people to react to your post or comment. It’s like hanging out at a coffee shop, with the added advantage of knowing the topic of discussion at every table. So, you sit at each table for some time. And even if you decide to sit as a listener and not participate, you’re warmed by the knowledge that your friend so and so is currently with you in the same room, that you’re having the same experience together.

It brings to mind the age of public radio stations. Naturally, the most successful anchors are the ones with the most social capital, the ones who know the craft of talking. There are lots of jokes about the word “CEO” being featured in the bios of many of Clubhouse’s first users. Achievers feel it’s their right to hold on to the microphone. But direct communication with people who are difficult to reach, like experts and specialists, is one of the most important features of the application. Since it is public radio, based on what listeners choose, heated political debates take place right next to intimate and fun hang outs. Anything could be up for discussion. 

Unlike other social media websites, Clubhouse has no archive. On Facebook and Twitter, every comment or post you made and every photo you uploaded haunts you somehow, and you walk about with baggage, unable to escape the past. Content on Clubhouse is like the popular Egyptian proverb: “Night talk is glazed with butter; when the sun comes up, it melts” – unless someone decides to record what you’re saying.

But Clubhouse — an application that doesn’t hold onto the past — is where Egyptians resumed their discussion of the past. Many of those who recently signed up for accounts commented that discussions have not yet moved past the period between 2011 and 2013, the years of constant, animated, urgent debate. This may be true for the simple reason that 2013 was when this kind of public discussion stopped. 

When it first boomed in February, Clubhouse’s main page was like Twitter’s timeline between 2011 and 2013. Everyone was returning to that point, trying to recall what we were discussing. Civil or military? Islamic or secular? Back then, discussion was bolstered by the Muslim Brotherhood’s year in power. When that was cut short, it was like we went back to square one. Of course, the question of “what if?” is present in all its forms.

People burdened with electronic archives and relationships torn by politics tried to resume conversations with the same vigor and dynamism of a time when the country had loosened up. Familiar faces that had disappeared from the media returned, like Mohamed Abou Hamed, Wael Ghoniem, and some of those previously seen as “the revolution’s youth.” From relative safety, the Arab diaspora made the biggest share of serious intervention.

Right behind politics are debates about social liberation, which erupted in 2011 and so far seem to be its only tangible gain. That eruption crystalized fundamental feminist questions and debates, and brought with them questions about political correctness and cancel culture, which converged with the global wave of #MeToo. Conservatism and progressivism are mainly present as fulcrums for speakers to revolve around in rooms about freedom of expression and choice. 

Most discussions are still intuitive, and play with the basics. But Clubhouse has shown how starved we have been for public conversation. This impoverishment took on a more serious dimension after the September 2019 crackdown, followed shortly by the restrictions of COVID-19. The app shows how much we miss a kind of open, continuous discussion which by default has space for different agendas and opinions, a kind of discussion which is not possible on Facebook, with its individual statuses, algorithms and specific circles of friends. Suddenly, many people who had retreated into their safe zones after 2013 leaned their heads into more open forums.

It can be hard to fathom that such openness can exist, in times like ours. Ahmed Moussa couldn’t believe that the rooms were simply open to anyone, so when he announced on his TV show that he had “infiltrated” a terrorist group on Clubhouse, his face beamed with victory, as though he were a cop who had arrested a burglar. Moussa’s statement indicates that the unrestricted conversation will not last long. Aside from sensitive political topics, insecure Egyptian family values will not tolerate humor, as we’ve experienced this last year. 

Clubhouse has been widely criticized for its approach to user privacy. You can only sign up with a phone number, and the app pushes you to open the contacts on your phone and send invitations to your friends. You can’t directly remove your accounts, and you can’t change your name more than once on the application.

People are only growing more and more worried about privacy and digital security in the Arab world, for both social and security reasons. Clubhouse users, especially those living here, fear the walls have ears.