Clubhouse. The hot, new app on the scene that's foreign to many and sacred to some. For those of you that aren't familiar with Clubhouse, maybe you've heard about it online or through friends. I'm here to give you all the deets on what this app actually is, and go into detail about how I've been using it in my own personal life.
What the heck is Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is an app that gives users the ability to host voice-only chat rooms where they're able to discuss various topics on whatever their heart desires. Moderators are able to create a room with a topic, and people are then able to join the room to simply listen in from the audience, or raise their hand to join everyone on stage and give their input. There are different clubs on the app that people are able to join based on their interests and the types of rooms they want to see in their "hallway" (this is the name for the feed on Clubhouse).
The app launched April 2020 and was initially for those in Silicon Valley. Currently, the app is exclusive and you can only join if you're given an invite by someone who already has access to the app. Eventually, it will be open to the general public. Also, as of right now, the app isn't available on Android devices.
clubhouse is going to be the new, big thing.
— Variety Princess ♡ (@VarietyPrincess) November 23, 2020
How I found out about Clubhouse
+ How I got access
I found out about this app one day when I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Extra Gravy Show. Marlon Palmer and Alicia "ACE" West were talking about how they had recently joined the app, and how there had been a room that Tory Lanez had joined and people were asking him if he had really shot Megan Thee Stallion (it's very common to come across rooms that celebrities and influential people are in). While explaining this, they were also explaining to their co-hosts who weren't on the app at the time, how it worked and what the purpose of it was. I was intrigued by this, because I had never heard about this app before until then, and the concept of it seemed unique and fresh.
Marlon and Alicia went on to explain other things that had happened on the app, and I was immediately pulled in. I knew I wanted to be on the app, but I knew it wouldn't be right away because of the exclusivity. I proceeded to go to the app store to download the app, and once I had it downloaded, it gave me the option to reserve my username. I reserved VarietyPrincess (in case you all want to follow me on there 
), and kind of forgot about the app. A few months later, one of my friends from college approved my invite, and I had access to the app!
My Initial Impressions
One thing I will say, I think it's very intrusive and weird how you have no choice but to connect your phone number to your account. This is how my college mate was able to approve my invite to give me access to the app even though I hadn't even told anyone I submitted my username for reservation. So be aware: if you're someone that doesn't care for friends and family being able to find your account (and then potentially find all of your other social media pages), DO NOT try to create an account on this app. People can even find you if they simply have your number saved. Yes, that means if you don't have someone's number saved, but they have yours saved, your account will pop up for them. That's the main feature I dislike about this app, and I hope that it will be changed soon. And it's not like you can delete your account and just hop back on under a different phone number or something. You'll have to wait to be reinvited. 
When doing your bio section on your profile, the app allows you to connect your Instagram and Twitter pages so that people have the ease of clicking the buttons and being taken to your pages immediately. However, once again, the app makes you give it access to your IG and Twitter accounts if you want to use those specific buttons. I just think it's very weird how you can't really use the app without connecting your number or giving it access to your other pages. I'm not sure if it's in an effort to keep the app as exclusive as possible by making people provide a phone number to be able to use it or what, but I'm not here for it.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reserving my username without knowing these things so I'm just trying to embrace being potentially stalked by people I never gave permission to visit my pages, lol. I already have people following me from school, and my finger is steadily hovering over the block button, because I ain't got the time. 
Aside from this bothersome issue, the only other things I've noticed that I don't like about the app are pretty small in comparison for me, personally. I'm fully aware that the app is less than a year old, so there's going to be a lot of missing features that they're working on adding. Since I've been on the app, they've already made some significant updates, so I know in due time, there will be many more to come.
How I utilize the app
Clubhouse has become a part of my everyday life since my invite has been approved. I love hearing other people have conversations about topics that are meaningful to me, and I enjoy hearing different perspectives. One room that I make sure I attend every morning at 11AM sharp is this one journaling room. In the room, everyone meets up to journal in silence for 45 minutes (they even provide a prompt for us to write on if we choose to), and then at 11:45 AM, the stage is then opened by the moderators of the room for people to come up and share from their journal, share something on their mind, or simply say hi. It's a very wholesome space, and it helps me hold myself accountable with staying consistent with my journaling. It's one of my favorite parts of my morning now.
So far, this is the only room I join on a regular basis. Typically, when I'm on the app, I scroll throughout the hallway to see if there's any interesting topics that I'm curious about. There's one guy I follow that does debate rooms every day, and those are pretty intriguing. He does topics like "black people ask black trump supporters hard questions", and "zodiac ask zodiacs: what sign is most toxic?" and I'll pop into those rooms from time to time to see what people are saying.
In Conclusion
Thus far, the app is pretty fun. I find myself spending a decent amount of time on it. It gives me podcast vibes, and over the past two years, I've been loving podcasts. I believe once the app gets a decent amount of updates, it will be even more fun. However, I think over time, it will get super annoying. I think once even more people get on the app, or once it opens to everybody, it's just going to get extremely toxic and I'm not going to be interested in using it any longer. I also forsee the app getting too many updates after awhile and becoming bombarded with ads and all the annoying things every other well-established app has that we hate.
I guess time will tell. Right now, I'm just enjoying the app for what it is in the present moment, but I know it's not going to last forever. I've noticed that a lot of clout chasers are on the app and you will see that the moment you join and read people's bios and hear the way people talk in a lot of rooms. People also lose their minds when celebrities are in rooms, and as I said before, celebrities are always in rooms. If I go on the app right this second, I will find multiple rooms with different celebrities in them but that doesn't phase me. In fact, those are usually the most boring rooms I come across so I don't get the hype.
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this post. I didn't get to the nitty-gritty of every little thing you'll see/experience on Clubhouse, but I'll leave that to the imagination for when you guys are able to join on your own time. Leave comments on your thoughts, and thank you so much for reading! 
xo babes, Variety Princess
Great post! Thanks for the info on this app. I’m still debating about going on. I would like to just to join the sports rooms honestly lol but having everyone in my contacts being able to find me and what not is what’s pushing me away. That’s my only issue too.