Infinity chat rooms

Dirt is a daily email about entertainment.

Terry Nguyen, Dirt's senior staff writer, helms our dispatch, on chat rooms and the app Geneva.

Chat rooms have always made me anxious. I’m more comfortable as a lurker than an active contributor. My parents didn’t allow me to be on the computer for longer than an hour at a time in an attempt to preserve my rapidly declining vision. It didn’t help; it just made me averse to chaotic chat spaces. Since the demise of AOL’s chat room in 2010, the term has gradually faded from popular use as the group chat, which typically consists of a more intimate selection of friends or acquaintances, took over. But the chat room has never really gone extinct. Twitter, if you think about it, is just one neverending chat room. Slack is a company-approved chat room. Apparently, Snapchat groups can have up to 100 members. There’s Airchat, a new app that bills itself as “a dinner party in your pocket.” And Discord, of course, seems to be the closest present-day alternative to the chat rooms of yore by allowing users to maintain a semblance of anonymity.

In recent weeks, I've been bombarded with TikToks marketing Geneva, a location-based group chat app, as a social tool to meet new friends in NYC. Named after the Geneva Conventions, the treaties negotiated in the aftermath of World War II, the app’s mission is “to make the world a better place,” founder Justin Hauser told Business Insider. It has been likened to a more organic version of Bumble BFF, catering towards young women who are presumably new to the city. Some Dirt readers told me they’ve been introduced to the app through influencers (Sea Moss Girlies) and members of the fashion community (Leandra Cohen, Sprezza). But Geneva is broadly a “community” app that seeks to bring together users, virtually or physically, based on shared interests.

This past weekend, I finally had a few hours to explore its various interest-based chat groups, which are called “homes,” to see what the hype was about. Each home consists of a variety of “rooms” (similar to Discord’s channels) where people can further chat via text, audio, or video. The interface, which seems to prioritize the discovery of new groups and events, reminded me of Facebook Groups and Events (or even Partiful), while the chat function is structured like Slack and Discord. However, there’s a curiously gendered element to Geneva’s marketing. It has earned a write-up in Business Insider as the platform that Gen Z-aged women are flocking to, and most homes seem to be run by women.

My first thought was: It’s giving Discord, but for the girls. Many companies have attempted to clone Discord since it has emerged as the chosen chat platform for gamers. But maybe that’s an unfair first impression, as the most interesting aspect of Geneva is its attempt to bring users offline—something that Discord has no interest in. Geneva remains grounded in the physical world with an emphasis on events. Meanwhile, Discord found its niche as an accessible third virtual space, blending the group chat, forum, and conference call. And increasingly, Discord is not just relegated to community or chat.

As Dirt subscriber @goodsalamano pointed out on our server, startups like Midjourney have begun to rely on Discord for its entire user interface. It’s likely that more companies will adopt the platform for similar purposes, which will make Discord not only the biggest platform for communities, but a hub for apps. That’s not to undermine the staying power of chat apps, as there’s demand for this kind of 24/7 virtual interaction, among fans and subscribers of all kinds of content creators. Substack Notes is another example of a gated creator-led group chat.

However, most people want to consolidate their chatting to one or two platforms for convenience. In any given day, we can only partake in so many conversations. My default apps are iMessage and Discord. A recent Wall Street Journal article, citing data from Measure Protocol, found that Snapchat is the number two chat platform for Gen Z-ers, used by nearly three-fourths of people ages 16 to 24. Discord came in third. Like Somewhere Good, Geneva seems to be loosely focused around locality, but that requires users to have access to shared real estate. The charm of a chat room is in its chaos (and thus it was designed for easy exit); the comfort of a group chat is in its familiarity. Geneva tries to do both. When done right, the chat space can feel like a home base. And when you’re in need of a break, you can just retreat to your own room.

PLAYBACK

Snippets of streaming news — and what we’re streaming.

• The WGA Strike is in its fourth week. On-location filming of scripted TV shows in LA has ground to a near-complete halt. (Deadline)

• Puck’s Julia Alexander interviews Jun-koo Kim, CEO of Webtoon, which has become “an essential content discovery platform for Netflix and other streamers.”

  • ICYMI: My Dirt piece on transnational TV and the international streaming content pipeline.

• Naomi Fry on the Succession finale. (New Yorker)

• Kim Cattrall will have a cameo in And Just Like That’s season 2 finale. (Variety)

MIXTAPE

Good links from the Dirtyverse.

• David Byrne’s new Broadway show wants to use recorded instrumental tracks instead of a live band, leading to objections from the musician’s union. (NYT)

• Space is the place: Beyoncé launches a pop-up in London, coinciding with her Renaissance tour. (Vogue)

• Rebecca Jennings on Find My Friends and the illusion of privacy. (Vox)

• Annie Ernaux’s latest book is set at the supermarket. (The Atlantic)

• I promise to devote very little space in this newsletter to parse the Matty Healy “controversy,” but this really made me laugh. I’m sorry, I can’t seriously care about the lead singer of a band that is called “The 1975.”

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