Reframing Clubhouse app “user” as an “enjoyer” for a more human experience
Part three of the Empathy on Clubhouse series
Reframe the terminology “User” to “Enjoyer”
There is an opportunity to change our relationship with Clubhouse so we don’t develop the same bad habits we all have with other social media platforms. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, we must reframe the way we view the app.
Silicon Valley introduced us to a word that is now part of our daily vernacular when we are talking about tech and social media. The word I’m referring to is “user.” When else does society use the term user? When we refer to drug users or people who suffer from addiction.
Let’s start with reframing our relationship with the word user: to be used or to use. For a human, the term user only has negative connotations, especially with our use of technology. Technology can be as addictive as drugs. In a world where product experts write books about getting “users” hooked… let’s find a way to alter the narrative.
Before we were called users, we were called consumers. Companies viewed consumers as commodities to which they could sell their products. While not as extreme as the term user, the word consumer also highlights the transcational capitalistic relationship between corporations and human beings. Long before we were called users or consumers, we lived in shared tribes and communities, where more emphasis was placed on enjoying the company of others rather using others to achieve a sales goal. We existed as “enjoyers.” Let us reframe our experience on Clubhouse and be enjoyers, not users.
When he (the Self) is in union with the body, the senses and the mind, then wise people call him the enjoyer.’
THE VEDANTA-SUTRAS WITH THE COMMENTARY BY SANKARACARYA
Devadatta, for instance, is an enjoyer, the dish (which he eats) an object of enjoyment.
THE VEDANTA-SUTRAS WITH THE COMMENTARY BY SANKARACARYA
In order to become enjoyers, let’s look at the three enjoyer journies of the app. The first is the Clubhouse stage, the second is the Clubhouse hallway, and the third is the Clubhouse audience.
The goal
To reframe how we view the optics of Clubhouse and teach facilitation and participant tools to try and find crowd wisdom, increase empathy, take time to play, and uncover our most authentic selves to fully become the enjoyer.
1. The Clubhouse Stage: A theatre stage instead of a “look at me” stage.
Setting The Stage:
Imagine a Clubhouse room like a theater ensemble inspired by Augusto Boal. Augusto Boal, a theater visionary and nobel peace prize nominee, created a form of community-based education that uses theater as a tool for social change. “In the 1960’s, Boal developed a process whereby audience members could stop a performance and suggest different actions for the character experiencing oppression, and the actor playing that character would then carry out the audience’s suggestions. The plays performed were usually written by community members about situations in which they felt oppression in real life. This evolved into inviting audience members with suggestions for change onto the stage to demonstrate their ideas as an actor. Through this process, he discovered audience members became empowered not only to imagine change but to actually practice that change, reflect collectively on the suggestion, and thereby become empowered to generate social action.” (https://ptoweb.org/aboutpto/a-brief-biography-of-augusto-boal/)
In a typical theater production, you have directors, producers, stage managers, actors, and an audience. When we apply the theater reframe to the Clubhouse environment to embody the enjoyer, bringing influence from Augsto Boal, here is what it looks like:
Moderators: Directors/ Producers/ Stage Managers:
The directors in Augosto’s theater would not direct with the intention of telling people how to perform but instead would behave as a neutral facilitator inviting other people to stage to share their point of view in the story, and ask questions on how to further develop an understanding of their perspective. Instead of imposing a narrative or theme, the director or facilitator would allow the community to dictate the direction of the narrative because the collective perspective was more important than one person’s personal opinion.
The moderators are the directors of the room. They have the vision and initial concept of how to structure the space. On Clubhouse, moderators are seen as the new influencers. They are the knowledgeable “experts” or the people leading the discussion and asking the questions. What if we reframe the moderator role and use it to help all speakers on stage become aware of our ego’s need to speak and encourage our EQ and ability to listen. The moderator can help rooms find the hidden collective common ground similar to the function of the director of Augusto Boal’s educational theater technique. They help uncover a deeper connective tissue within the living organism that is the room.
Moderators are also producers. They contact other people to join the room and bring in others who they believe can add value by speaking or receive value by listening.
Moderators are also the stage managers. They are present to make sure the room runs properly and that everyone in the room has what they need at all times. They solve problems in the moment and prevent further issues from occurring.
Moderators have the tool to make anyone they want an additional moderator for the rooms they create. Moderators can use the “make a moderator” button to build empowerment and trust. If you trust someone in the space who was not initially a moderator yet showcases a strong ability to take care of a group and engage the audience, then I encourage you to cheer them on and invite them to moderate. It’s a relay race marathon conversation. Pass the stick. Don’t hold on to it. Create a framework for teamwork and not individuality. Allow yourself to de-moderate and join the audience to see how it feels.
Speakers: The Audience and Performers
Augusto Boal said, “We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it,” and he applied this same concept to the Theatre Of The Oppressed. Boal named every participant in his space a “spect-actor” because he believed every person has the capacity to act in the theatre of their own lives, where everyone is an actor and a spectator.
Speakers are the audience and performers. In Clubhouse, speakers are only allowed to come on stage if the moderators invite them to speak or if they raise their hands and the moderators “call on them.” All speakers originate in the audience. This is where Augusto’s methodology becomes relevant. Anyone should be able to come up and “jump in” on the conversation, because we are all spect-actors, who deserve an opporunityt to become part of the performance and empower our voices.
When an audience member becomes a speaker, they have a substantial role in shifting the conversation of the room. It allows for conversation to break out of the moderator power hierarchy. Anyone can come to a room with a question, intention, or bit of knowledge the speakers did not have prior to their arrival. Knowledge is distributed differently in a space open to anyone coming on stage. It creates an environment for crowd wisdom that could not exist or have the same impact in a preplanned conversation with a finite amount of people. The collective human pulse of knowledge is in the ether and we need to find it. It can’t be found solely by 1–2 “experts” in a space.
Clubhouse generally hosts rooms where only one person can speak at a time. Because of this, most speakers on stage have the opportunity to practice active listening in addition to “performing.” What if instead of waiting on stage after you’ve spoken, you sit in the audience or go “backstage” to listen? We can encourage people to become part of the audience of collective listeners to improve our listening skills.
Close the gap: It’s very poetic, the literal white space existing between us in each room on the app. This is why we are here. To close the gap of emotional distance the white space metaphorically represents between us. It’s interesting to observe the white space gaps between speakers on stage because they on are bigger than the ones in audience/backstage. Why is that? The Audience/Listeners are closer to each other than the speakers. Because they listen together with no urgency to speak.
Audience: Backstage
Perhaps we can view the audience as “backstage.” This is where people can listen to conversations happening on stage and join whenever they feel it is their time to contribute. They can come backstage whenever they want as a safe holding space for active listening and don’t ever have to leave if it makes them feel uncomfortable to speak.
Followed by Speakers: Family
These are the people who sit closest to stage that are part of the “audience.” We can metaphorically view them as our family cheering us from the front row. They are the first ones to jump and help us if we fail in the conversation.
Before you enter the stage in a clubhouse room, take a moment to close your eyes and imagine you are an enjoyer in Augusto Boal’s theatre, and decide what role you would like to play.
2. The Clubhouse Hallway: A Discotheque
During the pandemic, I attended many virtual dance parties and I realized something felt very strange. Although the intention of the experience designer was to give people a space to dance, it never really felt like a dance floor. The DJ always danced on their screen, while most other people on the call would turn off their camera, so I never knew if the audience was dancing or listening. It took away the fun of co-existence and group dancing on the dance floor. I decided to try something else which I documented here: Designed Experiences of a Virtual Dance Floor. How can we create a more communal experience for the enjoyer on Clubhouse?
Discoteque: A library of discussion
Being in the hallway of Clubhouse is an adventure but it can also be overwhleming or disappointing. In order to get the ultimate enjoyer experience I’m asking you to view the hallway as a disquoteque.
Discoteque in Latin means “Library of discussions.” This “library” is most commonly known as a record library, but can also be viewed as a library of conversations. Every dance floor in a discoteque has its own vibe and energy similar to every room in Clubhouse. When we are in a dicoteque, we have permission to explore and be curious. We walk through every floor and decide which floor’s energy matches our current emotional state. We choose certain dance floors to passionately move our bodies, take a break and converse more intimately by grabbing a drink or sitting down, or have fun and shake our booties to the beat.
What if we imagine the way we navigate different Clubhouse rooms to be like dancing in and out of different floors in a discoteque. We must be intentioanl about the rooms we choose. If we want a loud and crowded dance floor where we will go unnoticed, perhaps we choose larger Clubhouse rooms with content about building our business from experts. If we want to chill in an intimate setting and dance to ballads we can choose a smaller social room talking about our favorite movies etc. We can change our mind at any moment to jump onto a different floor without feeling trapped to stay in one space.
We become an enjoyer when reframing the hallway as a discoteque because it brings us closer to connecting with the part of community we crave in the moment. We no longer feel overwhelmed and it helps us find the room we desire more quickly without the pressure to stay. In addition, Discotechques are physical spaces created to share community, allow for uninhibited self expression, or be silly, let loose, and take off our societal masks.
Before you open your Clubhouse app, I invite you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, shake your booty to your favorite song, and imagine what vibe you seek so you can be intentional with exploring the hallway.
3. Reframing the Clubhouse audience as a campfire
Next time you enter a Clubhouse room, imagine you are sitting in a circle around a campfire. In Yiddish, campfire is “Kumsitz” — meaning “come and sit.” A yiddish campfire is all inclusive, where there is always a place for you to sit, regardless of who you are.
We are all equal participants in a Clubhouse audience, engaging in space holding for others around the camp fire while celebrating the tribal act and ritual of coming and sitting together. When any new people join a Clubhouse room audience, imagine you are physically moving over to make space for them to sit down. Take a moment to really look at everyone in the audience instead of focusing soley on the stage. Investigate their profiles and get a sense of who they are. I encourage you to dm someone in the audience you think you may connect with similar to how we spark conversations with strangers who sit around us at a camp fire.
Viewing the audience as a campfire allows us to become an enjoyer because we can experience the feeling of warmth metaphysically and emotionally and be together as one.
I encourage you to try this reframing technique before your journey into the Clubhouse hallway, rooms, and audiences. Whether it’s as a moderator, speaker, or audience member, remember we are all spect-actors. See if this reframe changes your Clubhouse experience. I hope you will feel more fulfilled in your Clubhouse exploration and more empathetic to all members on the app. Let’s all change the narrative together and become a Clubhouse society of enjoyers.
Come play with me and Kyle Kaminsky (Co-founder of PLAY) in the Social Play Club!
Follow us Clubhouse: @SocialPlayClub @michaelronen and @kylebkaminsky
If you want to bring more play to your corporate team or virtual conference visit Wonderland Social to schedule a call!
