2021 was a year for the books. We laughed together, celebrated birthdays (and clubiversaries), learned new things, and made a ton of friends along the way. Here are a few of the moments that we’ll always remember from the first full year of Clubhouse…
The moments we came together to understand, learn, and process. In the “Meet Palestinians and Israelis” room, over 500,000 people joined up to talk with people on the ground in Gaza, spending 8.8M minutes there over the course of nearly two weeks. Later we saw similar connections through powerful conversations with people fleeing Afghanistan or dealing with the Astroworld tragedy. The Cocoa Connection club helped us process the George Floyd / Derek Chauvin verdict and Kim Potter trial, while others came together for deep and open conversations, including a global marathon discussion led by Nidhi Tewari, about mental health on World Mental Health Day.
The moments we came together to celebrate — from the discussions that Minh and Affan hosted live from the Tokyo Olympic Village, to Indonesian New Year festivities, to countless community birthdays, welcome rooms, tribute rooms and anniversaries.
The moments of surprise — from Oprah dropping into a room to give everyone the scoop on her conversation with Adele, to NBA YoungBoy unexpectedly previewing new music for 38,000 fans, to H1GHR Music bringing on Jay B, ph-1 and 14,000 other friends, to Zoe Saldana, Reese Witherspoon, and Tiffany Haddish coming together to talk about diversity in storytelling, with a hilarious background cameo from Danny DeVito, live from the set.
The moments we came together to grieve and mourn the passing of people that touched our lives and were part of our community, with millions paying tribute to people like Jin Yu, Virgil Abloh, Michael K Williams, Bishop Desmond Tuto, Joan Didion, Betty White, and more.
The moments we came together to help others, like the countless fundraisers in support of the causes like MLK Center and Stop Asian Hate, the COVID relief efforts in India, and the incredible hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana. (A huge thank you to Noelle, Tokyo Vanity, Vany Woods, NaNa, and so many more for providing support during these difficult times.)
The moments we came together to talk about wtf just happened? Like Elon Musk bringing up Vlad from Robinhood to discuss WallStreetBets. NBA Finals. Fighting to #FreeBritney. A special thank you to all the daily news shows that brought the craziness and the headlines to us each morning — from News News News to Tech News Around the World to international clubs like Morning Taiwan Glocal News.
The moments we came together to find our people, collaborate, and sometimes fall in love… like the community-powered Sinphony Horror Anthology (shout out to the Horror Club!), Global Jam Session (thank you Noelle and Bomani for providing musical moments with creators from around the world) and all of the people who met and found someone on Clubhouse.
And finally, the moments we came together to be weird… from whale moan rooms, to rapping bios, to I AM WOW $ game shows and Backchannel confessions, to late night debates about whether cereal or milk comes first. These are the moments that make Clubhouse the beautiful mess of humanity that it is, and that make it so much fun to explore the hallways each night. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thank you for making Clubhouse part of your lives, and cheers to 2021. We cannot wait to welcome more voices in the new year, and for all of the crazy, human, weird, meaningful, fun and unforgettable rooms we will share together in 2022!